Policy Proposal 2007-27: Cooperative distribution of the end of the IPv4 free pool

[Member Services]

On 15 November 2007, the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) concluded their
initial review of "Cooperative distribution of the end of the IPv4 free
pool" and accepted it as a formal policy proposal for discussion by the
community.

The proposal is designated Policy Proposal 2007-27: Cooperative
distribution of the end of the IPv4 free pool. The proposal text is
below and can be found at:
http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2007_27.html

All persons in the community are encouraged to discuss Policy Proposal
2007-27 prior to it being presented at the ARIN XXI Public Policy
Meeting in April 2008. 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 2007-27
Cooperative distribution of the end of the IPv4 free pool

Author: Tony Hain

Proposal type: new

Policy term: permanent

Policy summary:
This policy will establish a process for RIR-to-RIR redistribution of
the tail-end of the IPv4 pool, taking effect after the IANA Reserve is
exhausted. Each redistribution Allocation will be triggered by the
recipient RIR depleting its reserve to a 30 day supply, and will result
in up to a 3 month supply being transferred from the RIR with the
longest remaining time before it exhausts its own pool.

Policy statement:
At the point when any given RIR is within 30 days of depleting its
remaining IPv4 pool, a survey will be taken of the other 4 to determine
the remaining time before each of them exhausts their pool (including
both member use and recent redistribution allocations to other RIRs).
The one with the longest window before exhausting its pool will be
designated as the source RIR. The recipient RIR will follow procedures
for an LIR in the source RIR region to request a block that is expected
to be sufficient for up to 3 months, but is no larger than 1/8th of the
source RIR's remaining pool. At the point where no RIR can supply a
block that is less than 1/8th of their remaining pool that will sustain
the recipient RIR for 30 days, the recipient RIR will collect its
requests each week, and forward those individual requests to the source
RIR designated that week.

Rationale:
This policy will establish a mechanism for the Allocation of IPv4
address blocks between RIR's, but will not go into effect until the IANA
pool has been depleted.

It is really bizarre to watch the maneuvering as the global RIR
community grapples with 'fairness' of distributing the last few IANA
Reserve /8 blocks. On one level this just appears to be petty sibling
rivalry, as people are bickering over who gets the last cookie and
whimpering about 'fairness'. At the same time, each RIR is chartered to
look after the interests of its membership so it is to be expected that
they will each want to get as much as possible to meet the needs of
their respective membership.

Existing practice requires RIR's to acquire blocks from IANA, which
leads to the current round of nonsense about optimal distribution of the
remaining pool based on elaborate mathematical models.

This globally submitted policy proposal attempts to resolve the issue by
shifting to an RIR-to-RIR Allocation model after the IANA pool is depleted.

This policy would effectively result in each RIR becoming a virtual LIR
member of all of the other RIR's for the sole purpose of managing the
tail-end of the IPv4 pool.

Timetable for implementation: Before 1/1/2009