Policy Proposal 2007-23: End Policy for IANA IPv4 allocations to RIRs

[Member Services]

On 23 August 2007, the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) concluded their
initial review of "End Policy for IANA IPv4 allocations to RIRs" and
accepted it as a formal policy proposal for discussion by the community.

The proposal is designated Policy Proposal 2007-23: End Policy for IANA
IPv4 allocations to RIRs. The proposal text is below and can be found at:
http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2007_23.html

All persons in the community are encouraged to discuss Policy Proposal
2007-23 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)


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Policy Proposal 2007-23
End Policy for IANA IPv4 allocations to RIRs

Author: JPNIC IPv4 countdown policy team; Akinori MAEMURA, Akira
NAKAGAWA, Izumi OKUTANI, Kosuke ITO, Kuniaki KONDO, Shuji NAKAMURA,
Susumu SATO, Takashi ARANO, Tomohiro FUJISAKI, Tomoya YOSHIDA, Toshiyuki
HOSAKA

Proposal type: new

Policy term:renewable

Policy statement:

1) Distribute a single /8 to each RIR at the point when new IANA free
pool hits 5 */8. This date is defined as "IANA Exhaustion Date".

2) It should be completely left up to each RIR communities to define a
regional policy on how to distribute the remaining RIR free pool to LIRs
within their respective regions after "IANA Exhaustion Date".

Note 1: It is fine for an RIR to continue operations with the existing
policy if that is the consensus decision of the respective RIR community.

Note 2: Address recovery and re-distribution of recovered address space
is another important measure for considerations, but should be treated
as a separate policy proposal from distribution of new IANA pool.

3) RIRs should provide an official projection on IANA Exhaustion Date to
the community through their website, at their Policy Meetings and
through any other effective means.


Rationale:

[current problem]
There are two major issues in terms of address management if no measures
are taken for IPv4 address exhaustion.

1) Continue applying a global coordinated policy for distribution of the
last piece(s) of RIR's unallocated address block does not match the
reality of the situation in each RIR region.

Issues each RIR region will face during the exhaustion period vary by
region as the level of development of IPv4 and IPv6 are widely
different. As a result, applying a global co-ordinated policy may not
adequately address issues in a certain region while it could be work for
the others.

For example, in a region where late comers desperately need even small
blocks of IPv4 addresses to access to the IPv4 Internet, a policy that
defines the target of allocations/assignments of IPv4 address space to
be late comers would be appropriate in such region. This would allow
availablilty of IPv4 address space for such requirements for more years.

Another example comes from difference in IPv6 deployment rate. For a
region where IPv6 deployment rate is low, measures may be necessary to
prolong IPv4 address life for the existing business as well as for new
businesses until networks are IPv6 ready. Some regions may have strong
needs to secure IPv4 address space for translators.

A globally coordinated policy which addresses all the issues listed
above to meet the needs for all RIR regions may result in not solving
issues in any of the regions.

2) LIRs and stakeholders remain unprepared for the situation if they are
not informed

If LIRs and the community are uninformed of the exhaustion, their
services and networks remain unprepared to face the situation at the
time of exhaustion.



[Objective of the proposal]
This proposal seeks to provide the following solutions to the problems
listed above.

1) RIR community should be able to define their own regional policies on
how to assign the last piece(s) of allocation block in order to address
their own regional issues during the exhaustion period.

2) RIRs should provide official projection of the date when LIRs will be
able to receive the allocations under the current criteria. The criteria
should remain consistent until this date in order to avoid confusion.



[Pros and Cons]
Pros: + It allows each RIR community to define a policy on how to
distribute the last piece(s) of allocations which best matches their
situation.

+ It helps LIR better informed of the date when they are able to receive
allocations from RIRs under the current criteria and prepare for the event.

Cons: + Concerns could be raised about allocating a fixed size to all
RIRs, that it artificially fastens the consumption rate of some RIR
regions. However, its impact is kept to minimum by keeping the
allocation size to a single /8 which makes merely 3-4 months difference.

+ Concerns could be raised that explicitly allowing regional policies
will encourage RIR shopping. However, this should not happen if the
requirements within each region is adequately reflected in each RIR's
policy through PDP. RIR may also chose to add criteria to prevent LIRs
from other regions submitting such requests.

Timetable for implementation: Immediate after all 5 RIRs (and possibly
ICANN) ratifies the policy.