[arin-ppml] IPv6 policy: merge ISP and end-user?

[Douglas Camin]

Eric -

The distinction between LIR and End-User remains only for the purposes of justifying allocations. After ARIN harmonized the fee structure a few years ago, everyone pays the same regardless of how they got their allocation (this was different under the prior schedules.)

I would agree that merging those justification criteria is a worthy goal as a policy objective but wanted to note that it won’t have a material impact on the financial result. Your email doesn’t state fees as an objective, but I think the history and impact are worth noting for the conversation.


Doug

--
Douglas J. Camin
doug at dougcamin.com
From: ARIN-PPML <arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net> on behalf of Eric C. Landgraf <echarlie at vt.edu>
Date: Friday, June 26, 2026 at 4:40 PM
To: arin-ppml at arin.net <arin-ppml at arin.net>
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] IPv6 policy: merge ISP and end-user?

I would like to see the LIR and end-user provisions nearly merged. A
large university like my own organization happens to sit in that grey
area where it looks like an LIR or an end-user, depending on the
meterstick you use. I would much prefer that organizations just have to
justify how much space they intend to use, and justify that they should
get space---obviously your average home-user doesn't need PI space.

There are still many ambiguities for large campuses starting on their
IPv6 journey: what is a "serving site" and how to create a reasonable
network plan that allows aggregation. We don't need them also asking "Am
I an LIR?"

        Eric C. Landgraf
        Virginia Tech

On Jun 25 14:46, William Herrin wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> I didn't see any feedback on the draft policy rewriting section 6.5,
> so I want to step back and solicit your opinions on what ARIN's IPv6
> policies should become. I'm going to ask some questions and break them
> into separate message threads so that they can be followed separately
> according to your interest.
>
>
> The question for this thread is: Should we attempt to merge ISP and
> end-user IPv6 address allocation policy?
>
>
> Traditionally, long ago when the InterNIC Hostmaster ran IPv4 address
> allocation, there was no distinction between ISPs and end users. If
> you wanted IP addresses, you got them. If you wanted a lot of IP
> addresses you had to explain why. Being an ISP was a good reason.
> There were a number of other good reasons. There was no specific
> category for ISPs.
>
> Around the time the InterNIC was divided up into ICANN and the RIRs,
> there was another important event in Internet history: the EGP routing
> table crisis. With the sudden public interest in the Internet in the
> mid-'90s and the corresponding explosive growth, we nearly exhausted
> the capacity of the backbone routing table. Through a heroic effort of
> the standards bodies and the software and hardware developers at the
> router vendors, we replaced Classful routing with CIDR and EGP with
> BGP, averting the crisis with literally weeks to spare.
>
> Coming out of the crisis, the smart people in the know said: Never
> again. We're going to give large IP address blocks to ISPs who will
> consume one slot in the BGP table. To the maximum extent practical,
> end users aren't going to have their own routes in the BGP table.
>
> This division between haves and have-nots was embedded deeply into
> every RIR's address allocation policy.
>
> The last quarter century has been a slow but steady retreat from that
> position. Efficient use of /19 became /20 and then dragged all the way
> back to the original class C, /24 limit where we are today. No one
> ever developed a satisfactory replacement for BGP multihoming, not
> even with IPv6. And slicing a /24 out of ISP space for an end-user to
> multihome turns out to have problems if you don't also disaggregate
> the entire larger block in BGP. Which is a bad thing. So BGP
> multihoming has become re-recognized as a proper reason for end users
> to have their own IP addresses from ARIN. Even the ARIN fee schedule
> and membership rights have been unified. The major remaining vestige
> of the original division between ISP and end-user is the requirement
> for ISPs to report their customer registrations with SWIP and their
> ability to record those registrations as in-use. End-users
> theoretically don't have downstream customer registrations to report
> or record.
>
> This presents an opportunity. As we look at replacing the thick
> language in the IPv6 policies, we can try to make the policy uniform:
> the same fair policy for everybody, end users and ISPs both.
>
> What do you think? Would you like to take a stab at it, or do you
> prefer that the ISP/end user division stay where it is? Your views are
> respectfully requested.
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
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