[arin-ppml] TIPTOP

[David Farmer]

First, compliance, regulation, and enforcement are stronger terms than I
intended. I'm thinking more along the lines of mutual understanding, shared
intent, and consensus.

Early in this discussion, others and I asked for more details about what is
meant by "celestial body aggregation". I believe this means that relatively
large address pools will be reserved for use on and around other celestial
bodies. Allocations will then be made from these reserved pools to ETNs and
their operators. I think this much is generally agreed upon. However,
which celestial bodies receive which size reserved pools is a detail that
needs to be resolved before ARIN or anyone else can begin allocating to ETN
operators on such a basis.

Furthermore, to be effective and to avoid future renumbering or address
block fragmentation around celestial bodies, it seems likely that very
large reserve pools will be necessary and will be of interest to the
Internet Registry System as a whole, the IETF, space agencies, other space
and Internet operators. What processes will be used to reach consensus
regarding these parameters? Ideas like "slow start" seem out of place;
conservation and other goals will likely have new balance points within a
celestial-body aggregation-allocation regime, compared to the
provider-based aggregation-allocation regime we have today.

I'm doubtful these issues can be effectively resolved within IPv4, given
that IPv4 allocations have been exhausted. The only possible solutions I
see for IPv4 are either to allocate Class-E (240.0.0.0/4) for ETN use or to
have NASA or another government agency provide an IPv4 block for ETN use.

For IPv6, I envision asking the IETF to allocate a block outside 2000::/3
for ETN use, and then using sparse allocation within that block,
probably starting with allocations for the Moon and Mars, then
other celestial bodies as necessary.

Finally, I think an ETN advisory group should be created that includes
representatives from space agencies, other space operators, and the
Internet number resource community as a whole.

However, nothing in the current proposal addresses how these many issues
will be resolved.


On Tue, May 19, 2026 at 11:48 PM Alison Wood <Alison.WOOD at das.oregon.gov>
wrote:

> Thank you for the suggestion!
>
> One intended goal of the policy was aggregation, but compliance was not
> defined.  I would appreciate any suggestions that you have on compliance
> and enforcing the aggregation per celestial body.
> ------------------------------
> *From:* ARIN-PPML <arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net> on behalf of David Farmer
> via ARIN-PPML <arin-ppml at arin.net>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 19, 2026 11:48 AM
> *To:* Martin Hannigan <hannigan at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* arin-ppml at arin.net <arin-ppml at arin.net>
> *Subject:* Re: [arin-ppml] TIPTOP
>
>
> On Thu, May 14, 2026 at 5:12 PM Martin Hannigan <hannigan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, May 14, 2026 at 13:07 Tony Li <tony1athome at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Fernando,
>
> > Honestly, what is the demand of it in terms of devices, networks right
> now and for the next few years ?
>
> In 2025, there were about a dozen space missions of note. I would expect
> the same with a slow linear increase for the foreseeable future.
>
>
> +1 to find a policy solution to support this need.
>
> Demand doesn't matter. A need presented by a community does. They(network
> and other engineers building these networks) already have demand using the
> resources.
>
> There's no good reason to argue if aggregation benefits are important both
> policy or technical. ICP2 and the NRPM say so. The high level resource
> engineering discussed  is a “duh” moment. Physics.
>
>
> I also support a policy to allocate resources for use in deep space and to
> aggregate them around celestial bodies. However, the current policy doesn't
> seem to include any kind of commitment from the entities receiving the
> resources to use them in accordance with the proposed aggregation. Without
> even a theoretical commitment by the resource holders to implement the
> intended aggregation, how will it ever be achieved? Obviously, there will
> be limits to what ARIN can contractually enforce; nevertheless, it seems
> prudent that resources received under this policy have some minimal
> exceptions to implement the intended aggregation. Without at least a
> minimal commitment to fulfill the intended aggregation, creating a new
> policy regime seems unwise.
>
> --
> 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
> ===============================================
>


-- 
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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