[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2013-6: Allocation of IPv4 and IPv6 Address Space to Out-of-region Requestors - Revised

[David Conrad]

Hi,

Commenting on Geoff's note:

>> The Regional Internet Registries did not spring up
>> from a desire to build ring fences around geographies, but oddly enough
>> quite the opposite.

While I won't bother exploring RIR history, the end result (perhaps not surprisingly) has been exactly that, as evidenced by existing AfriNIC policy and the LACNIC proposal (and effective practice).

Pragmatically, this means that in the case of the remaining free pools of IPv4 (ARIN, AfriNIC, and LACNIC), only the ARIN pool is without an explicit policy requirement of in-region use. The practical implication of this is that the ARIN pool will serve not just the ARIN region applicants but (as we have seen) applicants from the AP region and the European region. This has and will have the obvious impact of draining the ARIN free pool faster than what would otherwise be the case.

One can make the argument that this is not necessarily bad, e.g., it will accelerate the need to migrate to IPv6 (which has to happen regardless) or ARIN serving as the "registry for the global addressless" is in the best interests of the ARIN community or the Internet as a whole. One can also argue that policy to combat this is too hard to define/implement, etc. 

On the other hand, one could say, the RIRs were established to serve regional addressing requirements and as such, addresses should be allocated for in-region use. 

In either case, I believe the ARIN community should make a decision on which of these views they believe is appropriate for the ARIN region and policy should be made explicit in order to provide extremely clear guidance to staff -- it seems there is currently too much ambiguity and misunderstanding about this topic.

>> It was to make this process of obtaining addresses even
>> easier and more convenient. You could speak to someone in your own time
>> zone, who hopefully spoke your langiuage,

And yet, the situation in question is precisely the opposite.

>> So it seems to me that there are good reasons why you want to keep looking
>> for ways to break down further impediments and barriers to use the
>> Internet, and ways to make the network a tool for access to a seamless
>> global environment. And, equally, there are probably many reasons to pause
>> and reflect on the longer term implications of reverting to regional, or
>> even national address plans. 

At a global policy perspective, there is indeed a question as to the appropriate direction forward -- the arguments made by Geoff could easily be taken as suggesting the RIR system should revert back to a singular global registry with a single, unified addressing plan and allocation mechanism. There are, of course, numerous folks who would argue that national bodies should take over that function. And there are undoubtedly those who believe the status quo is just fine.

However, we still have a few more months of IPv4 and the reality of limited pools, uneven distribution, and lack of parity in allocation policy amongst the RIRs with free pools. From my point of view, this is what 2013-6 is looking to address.

Regards,
-drc

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