[arin-ppml] What do you think of 2011-1 (now in Last Call)?

[Joe St Sauver]

Hi,

I oppose 2011-1.

Rationale:

-- While I strongly support deployment of IPv6, I believe that IPv4 will
   continue to play an important role for years, if not decades, to come.

-- I recognize and acknowledge the short term needs that exist in some
   regions for more IPv4 address space, most notably APNIC. I'm mindful
   of the NRO address reports showing APNIC demand for 5+ /8's in '08, 
   5+ /8's in '09, 7+ /8's in '10, and 6+ /8's in '11 -- I'd expect that
   if the space were to be available, APNIC would likely be able to 
   justify and use a comparable number of additional /8's in the coming 
   year(s).

   While estimates vary when it comes to usable residual address space 
   per region, even if all residual ARIN space were to be transfered 
   out toward APNIC's immediate requirement, it would likely not even
   meet one additional year's need. Thus, any transfer scheme would 
   represent purely pallative short term aid for APNIC region users. I'm
   sure the additional address space would be appreciated, but it wouldn't
   fix the fundamentally un-meetable demand for new address space from
   that region.

-- I *also* recognize that there are great disparities in the allocation
   of IPv4 address space relative to regional populations.

   When I last did the math, I saw (sorry if you're using non-monospace
   fonts):

   Region      Population         IPv4 /8's        Ratio of %'s
   Asia        4,121,097 60.3%    44.24 31.6%      0.54
   Africa      1,009,893 14.7%     2.29  1.6%      0.112
   Europe        732,206 10.7%    31.42 22.5%      2.103
   L America     528,418  8.5%     6.28  4.5%      0.529
   N America     348,360  5.1%    27.65 19.8%      3.882
   Oceania        35,387  0.5%    (part of APNIC)  
   Total:      6,829,360         139.85

   [Population in thousands, mid year 2009 estimates from the UN; address
   usage from www.nro.net/statistics (Sept 2011).]

   If everything was proportionate, you'd see a 1.0 ratio for each
   region. Obviously, the actual ratios aren't very close to those values.

   In particular, obviously North America and Europe have more address
   space than they should, if everything was strictly proportionate.

   In considering that table, note that while APNIC has one of the lower
   ratios (0.54), it actually already has the largest number of reported 
   IPv4 /8's

   But also note that Africa, with the second largest tranche of the world's
   population, has only a little over *two* /8's, or roughly 11% of the
   number of /8's one might expect.

-- Thus, my overarching concern would be that if additional IPv4 resources
   are transfered out of the ARIN region *now*, in an attempt to meet the 
   short term demand for additional resources in the APNIC region (which,
   recall, already has over 44 /8's), there will quickly be no IPv4 
   resources available for transfer to the AFRINIC region in the 
   *intermediate* term (when that region finally is able to participate 
   more fully in the Internet community as a result of 
   just-recently-improving transoceanic fiber availability).

-- I also understand and sympathize with the desire to "end the suffering"
   and just "finish using up" what IPv4 address space remains, thereby
   forcing the reality of IPv6 upon a reluctant audience, however I'm
   not willing to force a precipitous exhaustion scheme just to "get it
   finally over-and-done-with." Suicide pacts don't make for good public
   policy.

Thanks for considering this input,

Regards,

Joe St Sauver, Ph.D. (joe at oregon.uoregon.edu)

Disclaimer: opinions expressed are my own, and do not necessarily reflect
the opinion of any organization or other entity.