[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2013-3: Tiny IPv6 Allocations for ISPs

[Owen DeLong]

On Mar 27, 2013, at 5:55 PM, John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:

> On Mar 27, 2013, at 8:40 PM, Jimmy Hess <mysidia at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Well, logically they could have up to  approximately1000 customers,
>> assuming no NAT and an average of one /32 per customer.
>> 
>> The IPv6 equivalent of  1000 /48s  = a  /38
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> Now the ISP could indeed assign a /52 per customer, which means that
> /40 would provide for assignments for 4 thousand customers (and at 
> /56 per customer, well, they can serve quite bit more from /40…)

True, but this locks the ISP into a /52 PAU for purposes of justifying additional
space. This means that when it comes time to expand, if they have any customers
that received /48s, the ISP has to explain how each of them justified 16 /52s
instead of just giving them /48s.

> If we keep them serving 1024 customers, then a /40 provides them with 
> the ability to serve all of them using /52 size assignments, and an 
> ISP that feels strongly that a /48 is more appropriate for assignments 
> could opt for a /36 allocation, and move up to the x-small category 
> at $1000/year 

Right… We can provide an economic incentive to get ISPs to give their
customers undersized allocations. It's probably little or no skin off the
ISP's nose and the customers probably won't care for years to come.
Instead, it reduces innovation in the home gateway space and stifles
product development for years (or decades) to come all in the name of
~300 ISPs saving $500/year (a total revenue difference to ARIN of
$150,000).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't ARIN spend more than that on
outreach trying to get people to deploy IPv6 each year?

Owen