[arin-ppml] ARIN-2012-3: ASN Transfers - Last Call

[Heather Schiller]

Sure, ARIN could pursue this type of recovery of ASN's - just like
they could have pursued this kind of recovery for v4.  The community
rejected recovery several times, I think for the same reason they
would reject recovery for ASN's.  It simply does not address the
underlying desire driving this policy:  For the holder of the resource
to choose (or have chosen for them, by a bankruptcy court) who to pass
the resource on to.   There is no underlying technical argument to do
so, when a network, equipment or customers do not pass with the number
resource, and those cases are covered by 8.2.  I have yet to hear
anyone describe a corner case not covered by 8.2, aside from the
bankruptcy court trying to extract profit for a resource.. a resource
that at other times we claim, derives its value solely from its
uniqueness and the services provided by ARIN.

So then, why do it?  Because, in the case of ASN's where scarcity is
not an issue, the specific order or length of the numbers means
something to the receiver of the resource.   Be they short, memorable,
or have some interesting or historical provenance the receiver finds
the specific ASN valuable.

Unlike ASN's, v4 netblocks are becoming scarce, so folks are
incentivized to reorder their affairs and free up resources.  There is
some reasonableness to that, and the idea of financially recovering
what you can in order to cover the expense of renumbering.  Will that
be the case with ASN's or will the ASN's that get transferred already
be vacant?  The incentive to renumber needs to be high enough to
justify or recover your renumbering costs.  Which means that either
there is profit to be made or the resource is unused.   If its not in
use, there is no expense for renumbering, so returning it back to the
community is the right thing to do.  It's like returning a book to the
library.. I don't understand why the lender holding it should get to
choose who gets to borrow it next.

 I believe thus far, no one has used 8.3 to transfer resources out of
the goodness of their heart - those that believe the resources belong
to the community have returned them to the free pool without regard to
who will receive the resources in the future.

--Heather

On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 11:49 PM, Jimmy Hess <mysidia at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/9/12, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
>> On 5/9/12, John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:
>> For folks looking for a reason for AS number transfers, here's a thought:
>>
>> Implementing BGP communities is a nuisance with a 32-bit AS number.
>> The convention is: 16 bits AS number, 16 bits tag. Virtually every
> [snip]
>
> What you have shown is a good justification for obtaining a 16-bit AS
> number.   It's actually a valid justification,   unlike other poor
> excuses such as  "a provider I want to peer with doesn't like 32bit
> numbers"
>
> There are other solutions besides AS transfers that do not encourage
> spammers to figure out which ASes are unused,  and  bulk mail WHOIS
> contacts with solicitations to sell their ASN.
>
>
> ARIN should assign 32-bit AS numbers to organizations that can use
> 32-bit AS numbers, reserve  16-bit AS numbers to organizations  who
> have a clear technical issue such as use of such communities; which
> impacts their network implementation.  16bit numbers should be
> available to assign to orgs that have a reason such as that,    and
> for ARIN to make sure they are available requires that some of the
> 16bit numbers  not be available in the absence of a strong technical
> reason such as that.
>
>
>
> It is not apparent that enabling  specified transfers is the most
> efficient way to reclaim AS numbers that are no longer in use,
> however.
>
> Since there are only at most 8000 of them, in theory,  and these AS
> numbers are subject to RIR policy,  there is not a massive swamp of
> "Legacy AS numbers",   I would suggest  an alternate method of
> reclaiming unused 16-bit AS numbers:
>
>
> ARIN can compile a list of  AS numbers  that have been assigned more
> than 90 days ago but do not appear as an Origin or Path member in
> globally visible BGP prefix listings.      ARIN can  e-mail each
> resource holder that has an AS number which does not appear,
> requesting   that the resource holder account for and show their usage
> of the AS number resource   or  return it.
>
> The same should occur for a previously active AS number that
> disappears from the table for more than 90 days.
>
> Responses showing a current private use of the AS number are not reclaimable.
> Any returned AS numbers  become part of the allocatable pool.
>
> AS numbers from which no adequate response is received with a
> sufficient number of attempts to contact the AS number resource
> holder,  place the AS holder  in a "Not in good standing" status,
> the WHOIS Records for the AS go to  "Resource not verified",
> the matter must be resolved before allocating, or transferring any IP
> address resources for the Org in or Out.
>
>
> If the resource holder cannot be reached / does not respond to the
> resource review request within 12 months,  and the AS number still
> does not appear in global tables,  the AS assignment is revoked.
>
>
> --
> -JH
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