[arin-ppml] IPv6 policy: subsequent allocations?

[William Herrin]

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: How should ARIN handle second and
subsequent allocations of IPv6 addresses?

Current policy says that your IPv6 addresses have to be employed and
in use according to somewhat complicated definitions of in-use in
order to qualify for additional addresses. ARIN will then try to
expand your netmask. If they can't because someone else's allocation
is in the way, they'll allocate a new, larger block and ask (but not
require) you to renumber out of the old one.

This approach has a couple of odd artifacts. The amount of addresses
you're qualified for under the subsequent allocation criteria aren't
exactly the same as what you qualified for under the initial
allocation criteria.

A different approach could be to have a single rule set to determine
how many addresses you're qualified for. If you want more addresses,
you apply the same rules you did originally to the current conditions
on your network. This would avoid inconsistencies but it would also
get rid of the "prove you're using IPv6 addresses efficiently"
requirement.

Given that IPv6 addresses are plentiful and if we don't do anything
too silly they'll remain plentiful well into the foreseeable future,
do we need registrants to prove efficient use before resizing their
address allocation? That's a lot of paperwork for the registrant to
prepare and the analyst to examine, all of it blocking whatever
improvement the registrant wants to make to their IPv6 network. We
need it for IPv4 because folks have a financial motive to lie, but is
that true of IPv6?

Anyway, what do you think? Continue to treat initial and subsequent
IPv6 allocations differently? Try to merge their criteria into
something more uniform? Your views are respectfully requested.

Regards,
Bill Herrin