Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2016-6: Eliminate HD-Ratio from NRPM

[ARIN]

On 15 September 2016, the ARIN Advisory Council (AC) advanced the 
following Draft Policy to Recommended Draft Policy status:

ARIN-2016-6: Eliminate HD-Ratio from NRPM

The text of the Recommended Draft Policy is below, and may also be found at:
https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2016_6.html

You are encouraged to discuss all Recommended Draft Policies on PPML
prior to their presentation at the next ARIN Public Policy Consultation
(PPC). PPML and PPC discussions are invaluable to the AC when
determining community consensus.

The 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)



Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2016-6: Eliminate HD-Ratio from NRPM

Date: 20 September 2016

AC's assessment of conformance with the Principles of Internet Number 
Resource Policy:

This proposal is technically sound and enables fair and impartial number 
policy by reducing any confusion caused by HD-Ratio remaining in the 
NRPM. According to the staff and legal assessment, these changes align 
with current practice of ARIN staff. There is support and no concerns 
have been raised by the community regarding this proposal on PPML.

Problem Statement:

The HD-Ratio has become an anachronism in the NRPM and some of the 
vestigial references to it create confusion about recommended prefix 
sizes for IPv6 resulting in a belief in the community that ARIN endorses 
the idea of /56s as a unit of measure in IPv6 assignments. While there 
are members of the community that believe a /56 is a reasonable choice, 
ARIN policy has always allowed and still supports /48 prefixes for any 
and all end-sites without need for further justification. More 
restrictive choices are still permitted under policy as well. This 
proposal does not change that, but it attempts to eliminate some 
possible confusion.

The last remaining vestigial references to HD-Ratio are contained in the 
community networks policy (Section 6.5.9). This policy seeks to replace 
6.5.9 with new text incorporating end user policy by reference (roughly 
equivalent to the original intent of 6.5.9 prior to the more recent 
changes to end-user policy). While this contains a substantial rewrite 
to the Community Networks policy, it will not have any negative impact 
on community networks. It may increase the amount of IPv6 space a 
community network could receive due to the change from HD-Ratio, but not 
more than any other similar sized end-user would receive under existing 
policy.

Policy statement:

Replace section 6.5.9 in its entirety as follows:

6.5.9 Community Network Assignments

While community networks would normally be considered to be ISP type 
organizations under existing ARIN criteria, they tend to operate on much 
tighter budgets and often depend on volunteer labor. As a result, they 
tend to be much smaller and more communal in their organization rather 
than provider/customer relationships of commercial ISPs. This section 
seeks to provide policy that is more friendly to those environments by 
allowing them to use end-user criteria.

6.5.9.1 Qualification Criteria

To qualify under this section, a community network must demonstrate to 
ARIN’s satisfaction that it meets the definition of a community network 
under section 2.11 of the NRPM.

6.5.9.2 Receiving Resources

Once qualified under this section, a community network shall be treated 
as an end-user assignment for all ARIN purposes (both policy and fee 
structure) unless or until the board adopts a specific more favorable 
fee structure for community networks.

Community networks shall be eligible under this section only for IPv6 
resources and the application process and use of those resources shall 
be governed by the existing end-user policy contained in section 6.5.8 
et. seq.

Community networks seeking other resources shall remain subject to the 
policies governing those resources independent of their election to use 
this policy for IPv6 resources.

Delete section 2.8 — This section is non-operative and conflicts with 
the definitions of utilization contained in current policies.

Delete section 2.9 — This section is no longer operative.

Delete section 6.7 — This section is no longer applicable.

Comments:

Timetable for implementation: Immediate

Anything else

Originally, I thought this would be an editorial change as the HD-Ratio 
has been unused for several years.

However, further research revealed that it is still referenced in the 
Community Networks policy which has also gone unused since its 
inception. As a result, I am going to attempt to simultaneously simplify 
the Community Networks policy while preserving its intent and eliminate 
the HD-Ratio from the NRPM.

I realize that fees are out of scope for policy, however, in this case, 
we are not setting fees. We are addressing in policy which fee structure 
the given policy should operate under in a manner which does not 
constrain board action on actual fees.

This is an attempt to preserve the original intent of the Community 
networks policy in a way that may make it less vestigial.
Alternatively, we could simply delete Section 6.5.9 if that is 
preferred. The primary goal here is to get rid of vestigial reference to 
HD-Ratio rather than to get wrapped around the axle on community networks.