[arin-ppml] Advisory Council Meeting Results - March 2011

[Heather Schiller]

On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 8:16 PM, Benson Schliesser
<bensons at queuefull.net> wrote:
<snip>

>> I was initially sympathetic to this proposal and wanted to make sure
>> the community had a chance to discuss the pros and cons of LIRs that
>> are not ISPs.  However, it seems that we have an example of non-ISP
>> LIRs in the RIPE region, and what I've heard from several folks is
>> that such arrangements cause a lot of problems, and probably would not
>> be worth doing here.  If anyone takes a different lesson from that,
>> I'd love to hear your experiences as well.
>
> I'm confused by your choice of words, and I think it would be useful to clarify.  The current NRPM language allows ISPs to assign addresses to their customers, but doesn't define what "customer" means.  The text of proposal 132 does not explicitly create "non-ISP LIRs", but explicitly allows an ISP to act as a LIR for customers that might not be receiving "traditional connectivity" services from that ISP.  Granted, this is a nuance - but it's worth noting, for operational purposes, that the proposal wouldn't necessarily allow non-ISPs to become LIRs.
>

>From the NRPM:
2.4. Local Internet Registry (LIR)

A Local Internet Registry (LIR) is an IR that primarily assigns
address space to the users of the network services that it provides.
LIRs are generally Internet Service Providers (ISPs), whose customers
are primarily end users and possibly other ISPs.

** users of network service it provides** and yes, I understand it
says 'primarily' and not 'exclusively'   I believe this section of
NRPM is one of the older bits - and the rest of NRPM largely refers to
ISP's and not LIR's.


> Having said that, I'm frankly not sure this matters.  As I mentioned above, the current policy doesn't define "customer" and I posit that an ISP is already free to engage in this behavior.  Proposal 132 was intended to clarify existing policy.  The AC "reasons" given for abandoning this proposal seem to suggest a preference for the opposite of 132; should we expect such a proposal in the near future?