Draft Policy ARIN-2013-5: LIR/ISP and End-user Definitions

[ARIN]

Draft Policy ARIN-2013-5
LIR/ISP and End-user Definitions

On 16 May 2013 the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) accepted "ARIN-prop-188 
LIR/ISP and End-user Definitions" as a Draft Policy.

Draft Policy ARIN-2013-5 is below and can be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2013_5.html

You are encouraged to discuss the merits and your concerns of Draft 
Policy 2013-5 on the Public Policy Mailing List. 2013-5 will also be on 
the agenda at the upcoming ARIN Public Policy Consultation at NANOG 58 
in New Orleans.

The AC will evaluate the discussion in order to assess the conformance 
of this draft policy with ARIN's Principles of Internet Number Resource 
Policy as stated in the PDP. Specifically, these principles are:

  * Enabling Fair and Impartial Number Resource Administration
  * Technically Sound
  * Supported by the Community

The ARIN Policy Development Process (PDP) 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,

Communications and Member Services
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)


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Draft Policy ARIN-2013-5
LIR/ISP and End-user Definitions

Date: 17 May 2013

Problem Statement:

At ARIN 31, the Policy Experience Report (slides at 
https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/reports/ARIN_31/PDF/monday/nobile_policy.pdf 
or 
https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/reports/ARIN_31/PPT/monday/nobile_policy.pptx) 
reported that, in ARIN staff's experience, the NRPM does not adequately 
define ISP/LIR vs. end-user. As currently defined, and interpreted 
literally, many companies do not qualify as either LIRs or end-users. I 
would propose that the primary difference between ISPs/LIRs vs. 
end-users, for purposes of the NRPM, is whether an organization 
reassigns address blocks to third parties. If an organization maintains 
full control of all of the equipment on its network, and doesn't need to 
make any reassignments to other organizations, then it can qualify as an 
end-user. In particular, an end user organization can supply a full list 
of all the IP addresses in use on its network, and know what devices are 
using those addresses.

An ISP/LIR, on the other hand, should be defined by whether they 
delegate that responsibility to another organization. In that case, they 
need to reassign the network space via SWIP/rwhois, which makes them an 
LIR. Additionally, there are likely some ISPs that do not (yet) need to 
delegate any address blocks, but which assign address space to users 
(rather than to their own equipment), which should also fall under the 
definition of LIR/ISP.

Policy statement:

Update NRPM 2.4 and 2.6 to read:

2.4. Local Internet Registry (LIR) / Internet Service Provider (ISP) The 
terms Internet Service Provider (ISP) and LIR are used interchangeably 
in this document. A Local Internet Registry (LIR) is an IR that assigns 
address space to the users of the network services that it provides. 
Therefore, LIRs / ISPs are organizations that reassign addresses to end 
users and/or reallocate addresses to other ISPs/LIRs.

2.6. End-user An end-user is an organization receiving assignments of IP 
addresses exclusively for use in its operational networks, and does not 
register any reassignments of that space.

Timetable for implementation: Immediate