[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-153 Correct erroneous syntax in NRPM 8.3

[John Curran]

On May 29, 2011, at 9:01 AM, Brett Frankenberger wrote:

> On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 11:01:45AM +0000, John Curran wrote:
>> 
>> Owen - 
>> 
>> The language in ARIN-prop-153 is clear enough, but it is not when read with 
>> the general concepts in 4.1.8 and their potential application to specified 
>> transfers under your proposal, in particular:
>> 
>>  - Does the requesting organization have the option to specify the 
>>    transfer of a smaller block than their need, as long as it is 
>>    equal to or larger than the applicable minimum size specified 
>>    elsewhere in ARIN policy?
>> 
>>  From your response, I believe your intent is "No".  
>> 
>> This point will be readily argued by those requesting transfers (by pointing
>> to the text in 4.1.8) unless otherwise directly addressed in your proposal.
>> It could be as simple as adding a statement to 153 that "An organization may 
>> not receive a smaller block than their documented need."  
>> 
>> Note that we would still apply the remainder of the 4.1.8 regarding disallowing 
>> repeated requests as a means of circumvention, i.e. an organization may only 
>> receive one transfer every 3 months, but ARIN, at its sole discretion, may waive 
>> this requirement if the requester can document a change in circumstances since 
>> their last request that could not have been reasonably foreseen at the time of 
>> the original request, and which now justifies additional space. 
> 
> The "once every three months" restriction would be useful in preventing
> repeated transfers.  
> 
> I don't see that the "an organization may not receive a smaller block
> than their documented need" is going to have much practical effect. 
> ARIN has not had a practice of asking organizations to demonstrate that
> their actual need is not actually greater than what they've attempted
> to justify, and I doubt ARIN would start doing that.  So the effect of
> the "may not receive a smaller block" clause is going to be that
> organizations are going to find the largest block they can on the
> transfer market, and then go to ARIN with justification for that size
> (or smaller, if they can't justify the whole block), and then transfer
> it.  Someone who can justify a /15 will have no trouble justifying a
> /16, and ARIN isn't likely (at least not absent specific policy) to
> attempt to determine that the organization could really justify a /15.

I agree that is the most likely outcome of such a policy proposal 
being adopted.  

> So all that really changes if thay provision is added is organizations
> have to negotiate the transfer before going to ARIN with the
> justification.  This obviously creates a risk that the justification
> will not be accepted, or that the seller will find another buyer before
> ARIN completes its review of the request (possible mitigated by the
> buyer paying a portion of the sales price to get the seller to hold
> it).  And the buyer would have to accept the risk of successfully
> justifying a certain amount of space and then having the transfer fail
> for some reason, at which point he'd be stuck with that size and not be
> able to find a smaller block to transfer.
> 
> Overall, that would seem to inject a lot of risk into the process, for
> very little gain in actual efficiency.

My goal in responding to Owen was to solely provide clear guidance as to 
how to insure that implementation will match his policy goal; I'll leave 
it to Owen to speak to the concerns and benefits of the policy proposal.

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN