[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2025-6: Fix formula in 6.5.2.1c

[Owen DeLong]

It looks like when the PAU definition got moved from section 6 to section 2, it got decoupled and so 2.15 reads “Provider Assignment Unit” and 6.5.2.1 refers to “Provider Allocation Unit”.

This may be part of the disconnect… Nonetheless, ARIN has been failing to apply the section 2.15 definition of Provider Assignment/Allocation Unit (we should pick one and harmonize the two sections as an editorial change) as intended.

I quote 2.15:
2.15. Provider Assignment Unit (IPv6)
When applied to IPv6 policies, the term “provider assignment unit” shall mean the prefix of the smallest block a given ISP assigns to end sites (recommended /48).

(Underline and bold emphasis added)

We should probably also change “prefix of” to “prefix size of” in that same editorial fix.

Owen


> On Feb 16, 2026, at 17:50, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 9:24 AM John Sweeting <jsweeting at arin.net> wrote:
>> Suggest you read the staff assessment again
> 
> Staff assessment:
> 
> "ARIN staff currently implements 6.5.2.1.c BASED ON THE TEXT ALONE.
> The summarized formula is overly complex for your typical IPv6
> requestor. The text alone is more easily understood by customers and
> implemented by ARIN staff."
> 
> NRPM section 6.5.2.1c, first paragraph ('the text"):
> 
> "The maximum allowable allocation shall be the smallest
> nibble-boundary aligned block that can provide an equally sized
> nibble-boundary aligned block to each of the requesters serving sites
> large enough to satisfy the needs of the requesters largest single
> serving site using no more than 75% of the available addresses."
> 
> NRPM section 6.5.2.1c, second paragraph ("the summarized formula"):
> 
> "This calculation can be summarized as /N where N = P-(X+Y) and P is
> the organization’s Provider Allocation Unit X is a multiple of 4
> greater than 4/3*serving sites and Y is a multiple of 4 greater than
> 4/3*end sites served by largest serving site."
> 
> This formula, which staff explicitly says they do not implement, is
> the only place in section 6.5.2 where PAU appears.
> 
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin

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