Policy Proposal 2008-3: To Be Revised

[Member Services]

Policy Proposal 2008-3
Community Networks IPv6 Allocation

On 9 April 2008, the ARIN Advisory Council (AC), acting under the
provisions of the ARIN Internet Resource Policy Evaluation Process,
determined that this proposal should be revised. The AC will work with
the author of the proposal to revise the text and return the proposal to
the PPML for further discussion.

The policy proposal text is provided below and is also available at:
http://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2008_3.html

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

Regards,

Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)


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Policy Proposal 2008-3
Community Networks IPv6 Allocation

Author: Joshua King

Date: 1 April 2008

Proposal type: new

Policy term: permanent

Policy statement:

[Add Section 2.8 to the NRPM.]

2.8 Community Network

A community network is a generic reference to any network that is
operated by a group of people living in a particular local area
organized for the purposes of delivery or provision of network services
to the residents of an incorporated or unincorporated regional
municipality, city, town, village, rural municipality, township, county,
district or other municipality or other such geographic space, however
designated.

[Modify 6.5.8.1b as follows.]

b. qualify for an IPv4 assignment or allocation from ARIN under the IPv4
policy currently in effect or be a Community Network as defined in
Section 2.8, with allocation criteria defined in section 6.5.9.

[Add Section 6.5.9 to the NRPM.]

6.5.9 Community Network Allocations

6.5.9.1. Initial assignment size

Organizations defined as Community Networks under section 2.8 are
eligible to receive a direct assignment. The minimum size of the
assignment is /48. Organizations requesting a larger assignment must
provide documentation of the characteristics of the Community Network's
size and architecture that require the use of additional subnets. An
HD-Ratio of .94 with respect to subnet utilization within the network
must be met for all assignments larger than a /48.

These assignments shall be made from a distinctly identified prefix and
shall be made with a reservation for growth of at least a /44. This
reservation may be assigned to other organizations later, at ARIN's
discretion.

6.5.9.2. Subsequent assignment size

Additional assignments may be made when the need for additional subnets
is justified. Justification will be determined based on a detailed plan
of the network's architecture and the .94 HD-Ratio metric. When
possible, assignments will be made from an adjacent address block.

6.5.9.3. Number of customers

Community Networks seeking an allocation must demonstrate that they
provide for a user base of at least 100 through connectivity to homes
and businesses, public facilities, public access points, or mobile
users. Community Networks with user bases of under 200 must also submit
a plan for doubling their service base over the next year.

Rationale:

There are currently a number of projects globally that aim to develop
community network infrastructure and related technologies. These are
usually coordinated by volunteer-run, grassroots organizations which
lack many of the resources of traditional internet service providers and
other network operators. They have diverse goals, including public
policy, software development, and implementation of community services
and resources. Many of them provide services free of charge, and thus
lack any paying user base. However, in order to create and maintain
community networks that are often composed of hundreds if not thousands
of inexpensive, commodity hosts and devices, a significant amount of
address space will be required. Current-generation workarounds to this
problem, such as NAT, not only make it difficult to develop
next-generation decentralized network technology by segmenting the
community's architecture from the Internet as a whole, but will cease to
be as viable a stopgap as the Internet moves towards IPv6 integration.

Even now, common community networking software solutions such as
CUWiNware (http://www.cuwin.net) and Freifunk (http://www.freifunk.at)
have nascent IPv6 addressing support, but participating organizations
lack the address space for widespread testing or adoption. As such, it
is necessary to implement an procedure as soon as possible for these
segregated networks to acquire address space. These organizations do not
meet the criteria traditionally defined for LIR's, and thus cannot
acquire address allocations through existing templates. By establishing
a procedure by which these organizations can seek to acquire the
resources they require for further development, ARIN can reach out to
this active community and establish a small but definite space for them
in the future of Internet.

Timetable for implementation: Immediate.