[arin-ppml] Nanog IPV4 Panel Discussion and 8.3 transfers

[John Curran]

On Feb 10, 2012, at 11:33 AM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:

> No. A more likely course of events is:
> Vendor B puts in a transfer request to ARIN for a /16 and it is denied because they only need a /20 under current policies. Not wanting to waste the time and money they've put in already to locate and purchase a /16, they hire a consultant who modifies their request sufficiently such that their application for transfer now appears to show a need for the full /16. The transfer of the /16 is then approved.

That sequence of events is certainly possible.

> If that fails (which it probably won't), they renegotiate the deal so that they actually control the whole /16 but only transfer the /20 for now, and transfer the rest later... in the meantime they either advertise only the /20 or they just advertise and use the /16 with Vendor A's permission. Then anyone investigating what's going on has no idea what the actual usage of the "rest" of the /16 is, and thus begins the inevitable decline in the data quality of the IPv4 whois service.


To be clear, the rest of the /16 remains registered with Vendor A, 
who might decide months later to use it for some other purpose, or 
transfer some to Party C.  

The Whois reflects the actual registrant, not when Vendor B has 
an agreement to transfer in the future under some condition, or 
a right of first refusal to match or beat future transfer price,
or an option to exercise to obtain in the future at a certain
price, or any number of other esoteric structures that parties 
might postulate.

The point is that the actual number resources transfer when the
policy is met, and don't until that time.

FYI,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN