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

[John Curran]

On Mar 29, 2013, at 4:50 PM, David Farmer <farmer at umn.edu> wrote:
> In my opinion from a policy perspective, all ISPs or other LIRs are entitled to and should get a /32 allocation.  However, there are a number of entities where if we require them to take the whole /32 allocation a finical hardship could be created.  Either on ARIN's part by requiring fees for a /32 to be too low, or by creating a barrier to entry for these very small entities with fees that are too high.

Planning for an ISP to grow from /40 to via a /36 reservation 
reduces potential discrete blocks by a factor of 16, and many 
of them may never actually grow beyond that. 

Reserving a /32 means that ARIN will have a block in "reserved"
status which is actually extremely lightly utilized, and at some
point ARIN will seek an additional /12 from IANA and will need 
to explain why we are asking, in light of the reserved blocks.  
I actually do not know if these would be an issue, but we do want 
to be equitable in our reservations with the expectation that 
the same will happen in other regions, and has a consideration.

> So, I'm not necessarily thinking of it as making /36 or /40 allocations, but as these organizations agreeing to only use a /36 or /40 portion of their /32 allocation in exchange for a reduction or discount in their fees.  This is why, I don't want them to have to justify expanding from /40 to /36 or /36 to /32, they are fully justified at /32 already.  This is a financial consideration and they should be able to change between /32, /36, and /40 based only on internal business needs.

Acknowledged. The policy is written that so that ISPs receive a /32 
unless they ask for a smaller allocation. The community can adopt 
policy which allows this allocation choice to be increased later upon 
request, but even that will not be equivalent (from a reservation 
perspective) unless all of these allocations are made from reserved 
/28's (since /32 allocations from /28 reserved blocks is the norm.)
 
This obviously requires some consideration by the community, as 
suggesting that we reserve /28's for ISPs that ask for a /36 or /40 
for their needs may be seen as rather dubious from an efficiency 
perspective.

> Therefore, I feel it is a policy requirement that there is at least a /32 reserved for them in all cases.  I wouldn't be opposed to all ISP's having a /28 reserved regardless if they are using /32, /36, or /40. But, I believe /32 is a policy requirement and going to /28 is probably moving into an operational procedure realm.

So, if there is a need for particular treatment here, I think it 
is worth being specific, since our default reservation scheme only
provides for modest growth (a factor of sixteen) within the same 
block.

> I am rationalizing, ISPs getting smaller than a /32, by ensuring they will have a /32 when/if they need it, without having to change blocks.

It can be done in whatever manner the community prefers, but doing 
large reservations for relatively smaller allocations should be done 
via clear policy, so we know the tradeoffs being made in the process.

I hope this helps in considering the reservation aspects of the draft
policy.

FYI,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN