[arin-ppml] IPv4 SWIP requirements

[hostmaster at uneedus.com]

On Fri, 26 May 2017, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:

> 
> In message <Pine.LNX.4.64.1705261913060.30859 at localhost.localdomain>,
> hostmaster at uneedus.com wrote:
> 
>> Only the largest IPv4 customers are subject to SWIP, not the majority of
>> the total customer base.
> 
> Just when I though that I was beginning to understand, now I am *really*
> confused.  You say "Only the largest IPv4 customers are subject to SWIP",
> but I have no idea if, when you talk about "IPv4 customers" you really
> only mean to refer to those IPv4 users that obtain direct allocations from
> ARIN (?)  If you meant instead all IPv4 users, then quite obviously,
> your statement is -not- true, since the IPv4 SWIP rule applies to
> anything and anybody who has a /29 or larger, and many of these entities
> are clearly by no means "the largest IPv4 customers".

I guess I did not make it very clear what I meant.  When I said "largest", I 
meant the numeric majority of total customers that have only a single v4, 
rather than the "smallest", those customers that choose to obtain 8 or more v4 
addresses.

An average ISP has many customers.  The majority of the total number of 
customers of an ISP use only one IPv4 address and trigger no SWIP v4 
requirement.  Only a few of the total number of customers request an /29 or 
more, and these are likely businesses that host their own servers on the 
assigned addresses, and only these addresses must be SWIP'ed.

As an example, ISP X has 1,000,000 customers, of which 10,000 or 1% request 8 
or more IPv4 addresses.  This ISP must create SWIP records for all 10,000 of 
those with 8 or more v4 addreses.  There is no requirement to create any SWIP 
records for the remaining 990,000 customers, of which almost all of them very 
likely only have a /32 of v4 assigned to them.

Now, ISP X has decided that because they can no longer get any v4 space from 
ARIN, that they are going to provide a /64 of v6 network addresses to all its 
customers, and place all new customers behind a v4 CGnat gateway. Since each of 
the customers will be assigned a v6 /64, current ARIN policy requires ISP X to 
register each of these /64 v6 assignments in SWIP. Same minimum possible size 
network for both v4 and v6, but there is now an additional expense for ISP X to 
register ALL their customers in SWIP.

If ISP X had not provided v6, they would only have to SWIP 10,000 address 
ranges for the small share of customers who have a /29 or more of v4 space. 
These customers likely pay more for the additional IPv4 addresses per month, 
and this charge helps pay the administrative cost of the SWIP registration. 
However, since they have chosen the "right" thing and decided to provide both 
v4 and v6, they now have an additional 1,000,000 records to add to SWIP, or 
1,100,000 in total, and this cost is across ALL of its customers, not just the 
ones who elected to get additional address space.

The majority of most ISP customers have less than 8 v4 addresses, and in fact 
usually just one (or none in the case of CGnat).  When I talk about totals, I 
am talking of the total number of sites served by the ISP, of which the 
majority of the total sites have only 1 or fewer v4 addresses.

Albert Erdmann
Network Administrator
Paradise On Line Inc.