Polciy Proposal: Waiting list for unmet IPv4 requests

[Member Services]

ARIN received the following policy proposal and is posting it to the 
Public Policy Mailing List (PPML) in accordance with Policy Development 
Process.

This proposal is in the first stage of the Policy Development Process.
ARIN staff will perform the Clarity and Understanding step. Staff does 
not evaluate the proposal at this time, their goal is to make sure that 
they understand the proposal and believe the community will as well.
Staff will report their results to the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) within 
10 days.

The AC will review the proposal at their next regularly scheduled 
meeting (if the period before the next regularly scheduled meeting is 
less than 10 days, then the period may be extended to the subsequent 
regularly scheduled meeting). The AC will decide how to utilize the 
proposal and announce the decision to the PPML.

In the meantime, the AC invites everyone to comment on the 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 Policy Development Process can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/pdp.html

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Regards,

Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)

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1. Policy Proposal Name: Waiting list for unmet IPv4 requests

2. Proposal Originator: Scott Leibrand

3. Proposal Version: 1.0

4. Date: 6/11/2009

5. Proposal type: new    

6. Policy term: permanent     

7. Policy statement:
 
Replace 4.1.6 with:

4.1.6. Aggregation

In order to preserve aggregation, ARIN issues blocks of addresses on
appropriate "CIDR-supported" bit boundaries. 
ARIN will make all allocations and assignments as a single continuous 
range of addresses.

Add new section 4.1.8:

4.1.8 Unmet requests

In the event that ARIN does not have a contiguous block of addresses of 
sufficient size to fulfill a qualified request, ARIN will provide the 
requesting organization with the option to either modify their request 
and request a smaller size block, or be placed on a waiting list of 
pre-qualified recipients.  Repeated requests, in a manner that would 
circumvent 4.1.6, are not allowed. Qualified requesters whose request 
cannot be immediately met will also be advised of the availability of 
the transfer mechanism in section 8.3 as an alternative mechanism to 
obtain IPv4 addresses.

4.1.8.1 Waiting list

The position of each qualified request on the waiting list will be 
determined by the date it was approved. ARIN may provide a validity 
duration on each qualification, in which case the requester may renew 
their request  prior to its expiration to preserve their position on the 
waiting list.  Each organization may have one approved request on the 
waiting list at a time.  Any requests met through a transfer will be 
removed from the waiting list.

4.1.8.2 Fulfilling unmet needs

As address blocks become available for allocation, ARIN will fulfill 
requests on a first-approved basis, subject to the size of each 
available address block.  Requests will not be partially filled.

8. Rationale:

ARIN will soon be unable to meet all approved requests for IPv4 address 
space.  In the absence of a policy like this, it is unclear what ARIN 
should do with subsequent requests.

This policy would allocate reclaimed address blocks (and the last of the 
ARIN free pool) on a first-come-first-served basis, while preserving 
aggregation to the degree possible.  As the free pool shrinks, requests 
larger than the largest block left would  be placed on a waiting list, 
while smaller requests would use up the rest of it, until all requests 
have to go on the waiting list. As additional reclaimed addresses become 
available, the requests that have been waiting the longest would be met 
first.  If a requester gets the addresses they need via transfer, then 
they would be removed from the waiting list and would need to wait and 
submit a new request for additional address space, either directly or 
via transfer.

This policy does not attempt to ration addresses, define maximum 
allocations, or otherwise manage how much address space any given 
organization may request.  As such, it is completely independent of any 
"Predictable IPv4 Run Out" proposals.

9. Timetable for implementation: Immediate.