Policy Proposal 2007-20: Definition of known ISP and changes to IPv6 initial allocation criteria

[Member Services]

On 23 August 2007, the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) concluded their
initial review of "Definition of known ISP and changes to IPv6 initial
allocation criteria" and accepted it as a formal policy proposal for
discussion by the community.

The AC accepted this proposal as written. The AC believes that further
edits would clarify the proposal and enhance the chance of community
consensus, and will be contacting the author with their suggestions
within the next week. The Advisory Council recommends the author
consider these changes, and submit them to policy at arin.net no later than
17 September 2007, which is suggested as a deadline for revisions for
the upcoming public policy meeting.

The proposal is designated Policy Proposal 2007-20: Definition of known
ISP and changes to IPv6 initial allocation criteria. The proposal text
is below and can be found at:
http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2007_20.html

All persons in the community are encouraged to discuss Policy Proposal
2007-20 prior to it being presented at the ARIN Public Policy Meeting in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 17-18 October 2007. Both the discussion on the
Public Policy Mailing List and at the Public Policy Meeting will be used
to determine the community consensus regarding this policy proposal.

The ARIN Internet Resource Policy Evaluation Process can be found at:
http://www.arin.net/policy/irpep.html

ARIN's Policy Proposal Archive can be found at:
http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/proposal_archive.html

Regards,

Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)


## * ##


Policy Proposal 2007-20
Definition of known ISP and changes to IPv6 initial allocation criteria

Author: Kevin Loch

Proposal type: new

Policy term: permanent

Policy statement:

Add the following section 6.2.10:

6.2.10 Existing ISP

An existing ISP is an organization which meets the following criteria:

1. Has IPv4 or IPv6 address space directly allocated by ARIN; or
2. Has at least a total of an IPv4 /23 or an IPv6 /44 of address space
reallocated to them via SWIP by one or more upstream ISPs.

Address space directly assigned from ARIN or reassigned from upstream
ISPs does not count towards these requirements.

Replace 6.5.1.1 (d) with the following text:

d. be an existing ISP in the ARIN region or have a plan for making
assignments to at least 200 separate organizations within five years.

Rationale:

This policy proposal would change two things in the IPv6 Initial
allocation criteria. It adds a definition for "known ISP" and changes
"200 /48 assignments" to 200 assignments of any size, but to separate
organizations.

Existing ISP:

The term "existing, known ISP" in the IPv6 ISP qualification section is
too vague and does not give ARIN staff sufficient guidance for
evaluating qualifications. This text defines "existing, ISP" in a
precise manner and removes the unnecessary and ambiguous word "known".

It has come to the author's attention that several organizations have
been refused IPv6 ISP allocations because they were not considered an
existing, known ISP. At least one of these organizations has a /18 worth
of IPv4 space reallocated to them by various upstream ISPs and over 200
IPv4 customers. An organization's choice to use provider addresses does
not have any affect on whether or not they are in fact an ISP.

Address space that has been reallocated (not reassigned) is a good
indicato of an ISP as those SWIP templates are only supposed to be used
for downstream ISPs.

The IPv4 /23 value was selected to match the utilization requirement for
the smallest direct IPv4 allocation from ARIN under current policy.

The IPv6 /44 value was selected to represent a number of downstream
customers comparable to the IPv4 requirements.

Updates to IPv6 initial allocation criteria:

Section 6.5.4.1 recommends /56 assignments in some cases and /48
assignments in others. The Initial allocation criteria should reflect
the flexibility of these recommendations. An ISP should not have to
provide an inefficient address plan on their application even though
they expect to have over 200 IPv6 customers.

Timetable for implementation: Immediate