[arin-ppml] IPv6 policy: limitations on registrants?

[David Farmer]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2026 at 1:04 PM William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 29, 2026 at 10:46 AM John Osmon <josmon at rigozsaurus.com>
> wrote:
> > > Current qualifications for ARIN to assign an IPv6 /48 block for
> > > off-Internet use is roughly:
> > >
> > > 1. Have 2000 hosts, or
> > > 2. Submit a network plan explaining why ULA addresses are not good
> enough.
> > >
> > > More than a single /48 requires multiple sites and the above.
> >
> > When using IPv6 the trend has been to discourage counting hosts, but
> > rather counting networks.  Is it too much to ask the policy to start
> > drifting in the direction?
>
> Hi John,
>
> It looks like I over-simplified. Current policy is 2000 hosts OR 200
> subnets. Is 200 the number we should be talking about? Should we be
> talking about hosts at all, or just subnets?
>

As far as I'm concerned, we can lower the values within criteria c, d, and
e of section 6.5.8.1. Those are just the values we could reach consensus on
at the time. However, I personally believe we need similar minimum
justification criteria; it should not just come down to "I want" and "I can
pay $275." Also, we probably need to take into account RFC 9663, Using
DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation (DHCPv6-PD) to Allocate Unique IPv6 Prefixes per
Client in Large Broadcast Networks"; that wasn't really a thing when we set
those criteria.

The yearly fee of $275 is the reason ULA will never completely go away.
However, if you can meet the minimum justification and can afford $275,
then I recommend GUA over ULA. While some argue it should be lower than
$275 per year, GUA should never be free, and ULA is free and unique when
used as designed. Therefore, ULA continues to play an important role. ARIN
policy should not require the use of ULA, but ARIN should not attempt to
compete with ULA's primary advantage: "free local IPv6 addresses, for
anyone that wants them." Also, we need draft-ietf-6man-rfc6724-update,
"Prioritizing known-local IPv6 ULAs through address selection policy", to
get published and implemented.

-- 
Thank you / Ho Pidamayado / Miigwech
===============================================
David Farmer               Email:farmer at umn.edu
Networking & Telecommunication Services
Office of Information Technology
University of Minnesota
2829 University Ave SE    Phone: 612-626-0815
Minneapolis, MN 55414   Cell: 612-812-9952
===============================================
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