Policy Proposal: Equitable Distribution of IPv4 Resources before IPv4 Run out

[Member Services]

ARIN received the following policy proposal. In accordance with the ARIN
Internet Resource Policy Evaluation Process, the proposal is being
posted to the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List (PPML) and being placed on
ARIN's website.

The ARIN Advisory Council (AC) will review this proposal at their next
regularly scheduled meeting. The AC may decide to:

      1. Accept the proposal as written. If the AC accepts the proposal,
it will be posted as a formal policy proposal to PPML and it will be
presented at a Public Policy Meeting.

      2. Postpone their decision regarding the proposal until the next
regularly scheduled AC meeting in order to work with the author. The AC
will work with the author to clarify, combine or divide the proposal. At
their following meeting the AC will accept or not accept the proposal.

      3. Not accept the proposal. If the AC does not accept the proposal,
the AC will explain their decision via the PPML. If a proposal is not
accepted, then the author may elect to use the petition process to
advance their proposal. If the author elects not to petition or the
petition fails, then the proposal will be closed.

The AC will assign shepherds in the near future. ARIN will provide the
names of the shepherds to the community via the PPML.

In the meantime, the AC invites everyone to comment on this proposal on
the PPML, particularly their support or non-support and the reasoning
behind their opinion. Such participation contributes to a thorough
vetting and provides important guidance to the AC in their deliberations.

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

Mailing list subscription information can be found at:
http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/

Regards,

Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)


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Policy Proposal Name: Equitable Distribution of IPv4 Resources before
IPv4 Run out

Author: Michael K. Smith

Proposal Version: 1

Submission Date: 05/20/2008

Proposal type: new

Policy term: permanent

Policy statement:

Upon receipt of the last allocation of IPv4 address space to ARIN from
IANA, ARIN will reserve address space within the allocated block for
Organizations within the defined ARIN Organizational Size determinations
(Extra Small, Small, Large, Extra Large) based upon the utilization
percentages for each group gathered from the statistics of the last two
IANA allocations to ARIN.  In order to make the allocation percentages
mathematically feasible, the percentages will be rounded to the closest
whole number and, subsequently, the the closest bit boundary for
assignment the maximum allocation size for the Organization size as
defined by ARIN.

Once the final IANA allocation is received, ARIN will publish the
allocation percentages that will be used for the final allocation to the
PPML and ARIN website with the necessary documentation supporting the
assignment of percentages.

Rationale:

Description:

This policy is designed to allow Organizations of the various defined
sizes to continue to receive address allocations from the last available
space and is slanted towards ensuring that organizations within the
Large, Small and Extra Small groups (and more specifically, the Small
and Extra Small groups) are able to get additional IPv4 space at the end
of the ARIN's ability to allocate such space.  Given the statistics
below, it is likely that Extra Large Organizations would get most or all
of the last remaining space because given the amount they have been
allocated to date.  This policy would help ensure that other
Organizations had a statistically equal opportunity to receive space as
well.


Example:

Please see http://www.arin.net/statistics/index.html (Note: the
statistics are generated from IP allocations from 2006 and 2007).  This
policy would require statistics to be limited to the previous 2 IANA
allocations to ARIN.)

The present distribution as of May 20th 2008 is:

Extra Large: 83.11%
Large: 6.75%
Small: 9.00%
Extra Small: 1.14%

With this example, ARIN would reserve address space in the final IANA
allocation according to those percentages, to the extent that it is
mathematically possible within the existing range. In order to make the
math work, rounding would give us:

Extra Large: 83%
Large: 7%
Small: 9%
Extra Small: 1%

Who is affected:

All ARIN Members will be affected by this policy.  I assume that smaller
providers will benefit from having some space available to them beyond
where they would be with an organic allocation model, and the Extra
Large Organizations would experience some pain because, using the model
above, they would be excluded from being allocated 17% of the remaining
space, even if they had all of the necessary justifications for
receiving allocations from within that space.

Policy Enforcement:

ARIN staff will have to enforce this policy and ensure that allocations
stay within the published percentages.

Financial and Liability Implications:

Financially, there may be additional resources required by ARIN Staff to
allocate resources using this model.  These resources might include
application development, staff training and tracking of allocations
based upon the model.

ARIN may have legal liability should Organizations that were denied
space according to the model decide to contest the legality of the
policy in court.

Timetable for implementation:  Upon receipt of finall IANA allocation
(roughly 2011).