[arin-ppml] ARIN-PPML Digest, Vol 106, Issue 8

[Owen DeLong]

On Apr 4, 2014, at 1:25 PM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> 
>> With an exhausted IPv4 pool, there are no "pool limitations at the 
>> time of allocation" as there are no allocations.  ARIN's role in IPv4 is 
>> primarily the third goal above: registry accuracy.
>> 
>> That's why I advocate removing needs-basis from transfers in a post- 
>> exhaustion world.  There's no pool to manage[1], so the only OFFICIAL 
>> mandate ARIN has from the network operator community is to run 
>> an accurate registry.
> 
> I agree with David. 
> Needs assessment was designed to be a rationing mechanism that filled in the gap left by the absence of a price system for Ipv4 addresses. 

Continuing to make this assertion doesn’t make it any more true than it was the first time you uttered it.

Needs assessment existed long before any form of “rationing” of IP space was ever perceived as necessary. The nature and scrutiny of the process have evolved over time, but needs assessment has existed since the definition of network classes.

> Because ARIN hands out free pool number blocks for free, the absence of needs assessment would provoke a first come first served land rush and subsequent tragedy of the commons. Once you reach exhaust, however, no one gets number blocks for free, everyone must pay a market price for them. The rationale for needs assessment is totally gone. Restricting transfers in this environment _will_ inevitably produce inaccuracies in the registry data. 

Can you back this assertion up with facts to support it? I think it is entirely possible that there will be some unpaid transfer arrangements after free pool runout for a variety of reasons. Yes, market rate transactions will likely be the predominant mechanism by which addresses are moved from one organization to another, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that they will be the exclusive mechanism. Especially when you consider that there are various ways to define exhaustion and most definitions have more to do with when the RIR receives a request it cannot satisfy than when the RIR is no longer able to satisfy ANY request(s).

Further, nobody has yet offered any evidence that such restrictions will inevitably produce any greater level of registry inaccuracy than removing them. In fact, I think there is at least as strong a likelihood that removing such restrictions would eliminate almost all incentives to update registry data at any time.

Owen