Draft Policy 2009-3 (Global Proposal): Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries

[Member Services]

Draft Policy 2009-3 (Global Proposal)
Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries

On 20 August 2009 the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) selected 2009-3 for
adoption discussion on the PPML and at the Public Policy Meeting in
Dearborn.

2009-3 comes from a global policy proposal. Global policies require the
agreement of all five RIRs according to their policy development
processes and ratification by ICANN. And, global policies require
specific actions by the IANA.

After the ARIN Public Policy Meeting in April 2009 the AC returned
2009-3 to their docket for further development and evaluation.

The AC revised the text. The difference between the text presented at
the ARIN meeting in April and the current version is in "A. Phase I" as
follows:

Old ARIN "A. Phase I"

Each RIR through their respective chosen policies and strategies may
recover IPv4 address space which is under their administration. At
quarterly intervals, each RIR shall return to the IANA any legacy
address space recovered, and may return to the IANA any non-legacy
address space recovered, in aggregated blocks of /24 or larger, for
inclusion in the recovered IPv4 pool.

New ARIN "A. Phase I"

Each RIR through their respective chosen policies and strategies may
recover IPv4 address space which is under their administration and
designate any such space for return to the IANA. Each RIR shall at
quarterly intervals return any such designated address space to the
IANA in aggregated blocks of /24 or larger, for inclusion in the
recovered IPv4 pool.

Draft Policy 2009-3 is below and can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2009_3.html

You are encouraged to discuss Draft Policy 2009-3 on the PPML prior to
the October Public Policy Meeting. Both the discussion on the list and
at the meeting will be used by the ARIN Advisory Council to determine
the community consensus for adopting this as policy.

Note, the ARIN version of the global proposal is different from the text
at the other RIRs. The AC's version has a revised "A. Phase I" (APNIC's
equivalent is prop-069, see the second paragraph of 5.1). The ARIN
version also includes a definition of legacy space.

The APNIC proposal can be found at:
http://www.apnic.net/policy/proposals/prop-069

The ARIN Policy Development Process can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/pdp.html

Draft Policies and Proposals under discussion can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/index.html

Regards,

Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)


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Draft Policy 2009-3 (Global Proposal)
Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries

Version/Date: 14 September 2009

Policy statement:

This document describes the policy governing the allocation of IPv4
address space from the IANA to the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).
This document does not stipulate performance requirements in the
provision of services by IANA to an RIR in accordance with this policy.
Such requirements should be specified by appropriate agreements among
the RIRs and ICANN.

This policy is to be implemented in two phases.

A. Phase I: Recovery of IPv4 Address Space

Upon ratification of this policy by the ICANN Board of Directors the
IANA shall establish a mechanism to receive IPv4 address space which is
returned to it by the RIRs, and hold that address space in a 'recovered
IPv4 pool'.

Each RIR through their respective chosen policies and strategies may
recover IPv4 address space which is under their administration and
designate any such space for return to the IANA. Each RIR shall at
quarterly intervals return any such designated address space to the IANA
in aggregated blocks of /24 or larger, for inclusion in the recovered
IPv4 pool.

During Phase I, no allocations will be made from the recovered IPv4
pool. Return of recovered address space (as described above) will
continue throughout Phase II.

B. Phase II: Allocation of Recovered IPv4 address space by the IANA

Upon ratification of this policy by the ICANN Board of Directors and a
declaration by the IANA that its existing free pool of unallocated IPv4
address space is depleted; Global Addressing Policy ASO-001-2 (adopted
by ICANN Board 8 April 2005) is rescinded. IANA will then commence to
allocate the IPv4 address space from the recovered IPv4 pool.

1. The following definitions apply to this policy:

a. Recovered Address Space. Recovered address space is that address
space that is returned to an RIR as a result of any activity that seeks
to reclaim unused address space or is voluntarily returned to the RIR or
is reclaimed by the RIR as a result of legal action or abuse
determination. Recovered address space does not include that address
space that is reclaimed because of non-payment of contractual fees whose
reclamation date is less than 1 year at the time of the report.

b. IPv4 Address Holdings. IPv4 address holdings are all unallocated IPv4
address space held by an RIR to include recovered address space not yet
returned less that address space that is committed in accordance with
the RIR's reservation policy and practices.

c. Aggregated address blocks. Aggregated address blocks are contiguous
prefixes that can be aggregated on natural bit boundaries. 10.0.0.0/24
and 10.0.1.0/24 are two contiguous prefixes that can be combined to form
an aggregated address block. 10.0.0.0/24 and 10.0.1.0/25 are two
contiguous prefixes that cannot be combined on a natural bit boundary to
form an aggregated block.

d. Legacy address space. IPv4 address space allocated or assigned prior
to the creation of the RIR.

2. Allocation of IPv4 Address Space

a. For the purposes of this policy, an 'IPv4 allocation period' is
defined as a 6-month period following 1 March or 1 September in each year.

b. At the beginning of each IPv4 allocation period, the IANA will
determine the 'IPv4 allocation unit' for that period, as 1/10 of its
IPv4 address pool, rounded down to the next CIDR (power-of-2) boundary.
The minimum 'IPv4 allocation unit' size will be a /24.

c. In each allocation period, each RIR may issue one IPv4 request to the
IANA. Providing that the RIR satisfies the allocation criteria described
in paragraph B.2, the IANA will allocate a single allocation unit,
composed of the smallest possible number of blocks available in its IPv4
address pool.

3. IPv4 Address Space Allocation Criteria

A RIR is eligible to receive additional IPv4 address space from the IANA
when the total of its IPv4 address holdings is less than 50% of the
current IPv4 allocation unit, and providing that it has not already
received an IPv4 allocation from the IANA during the current IPv4
allocation period.

4. Initial Allocation of IPv4 Address Space

Each new RIR shall, at the moment of recognition, be allocated one (1)
allocation unit by the IANA. If an allocation unit is not available,
then the IANA will issue this block as soon as one is available. This
allocation will be made regardless of the newly formed RIR's projected
utilization figures and shall be independent of the IPv4 address space
that may have been transferred to the new RIR by the already existing
RIRs as part of the formal transition process.

5. Reporting

a. All returned space is to be recorded in an IANA-published log of IPv4
address space transactions, with each log entry detailing the returned
address block, the date of the return, and the returning RIR.

b. All allocated space is also to be recorded in this IANA-published log
of IPv4 address space transactions, with each log entry detailing the
address blocks, the date of the allocation and the recipient RIR.

c. The IANA will maintain a public registry of the current disposition
of all IPv4 address space, detailing all reservations and current
allocations and current IANA-held address space that is unallocated.

d) The IANA may make public announcements of IPv4 address block
transactions that occur under this policy. The IANA will make
appropriate modifications to the "Internet Protocol V4 Address Space"
page of the IANA website and may make announcements to its own
appropriate announcement lists. The IANA announcements will be limited
to which address ranges, the time of allocation and to which Registry
they have been allocated.