[arin-ppml] Community Networks (Was Draft Policy ARIN-2016-6: Eliminate HD-Ratio from NRPM)

[David R Huberman]

I dug through the archives and wow, this policy (2008-3) had a long 
history. It took 21 months from start to finish, was revised 4 times, 
and was discussed in 23 separate ARIN AC meetings.

tldr: existing v6 policy in 2008-2009 could not be met by operators of 
community networks, due to both the ARIN implementation of what 
constitutes an assignment, and a routing requirement (which has since 
disappeared from NRPM).


1) Policy rationale (final draft):

This policy was originally proposed by community network operators to 
provide them with the ability to receive a direct assignment of IPv6 
address resources from ARIN. The operators of such networks have expressed 
their need to have a stable and globally unique address assignment with 
which to number their network infrastructure. Many such networks are not 
able to meet the current criteria for a PI IPv6 assignment from ARIN.


2) In the first Public Policy Meeting this was presented, the topic of 
"cannot meet existing policy" was mostly centered around the criterion 
that existed of "must announce a single aggregte" into the DFZ. The 
presenter (Joshua King) indicated this was not possible for all community 
network implementations.

Somewhere along the way between 2008 and today, that "announce one 
aggregate" requirement disappeared from NRPM.


3) In the second Public Policy Meeting this was presented, the discussion 
centered around how ARIN staff applied IPv6 "you must have this many 
assignments" text, and what did (and did not) qualify as an assignment. 
The discussion seems to conclude that the proposed Community Networks 
policy would relax the requirements (as compared to existing IPv6 policy) 
and would allow ARIN staff to say "yes" more so than the NRPM at the 
time did.

4) [Note to ARIN staff - the link to the PDF of the 2008-3 presentation 
for ARIN XXIII has a typo and brings up the PDF for 2009-3, not 2008-3.]

This final PPM presentation is where support for the Caribbean carve-out 
became vocal, and the text crystallized into what we have today.