LAST CALL - Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2018-2: Clarification to ISP Initial Allocation

[ARIN]

The ARIN Advisory Council (AC) met on 10 April 2019 and decided to send 
the following Recommended Draft Policy to Last Call:

ARIN-2018-2: Clarification to ISP Initial Allocation

Feedback is encouraged during the Last Call period. All comments should 
be provided to the Public Policy Mailing List. Last Call will expire on 
29 April 2019.

The Recommended Draft Policy text is below and available at:
https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/drafts/

The ARIN Policy Development Process is available at:
https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/pdp/

Regards,

Sean Hopkins
Policy Analyst
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)



Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2018-2: Clarification to ISP Initial 
Allocation

AC Assessment of Conformance with the Principles of Internet Number 
Resource Policy:

This Recommended Draft Policy is technically sound and is fair and 
impartial number policy. This draft policy is an attempt to clarify the 
changes that came about from 2016-4. It also aligns section 4.2 with 
current transfer policy. It also re-established the understanding that 
ISP can renumber and return, by putting the last section 4.2.2.1.4 into 
the ISP additional requests section. The policy text has been changed 
and the proposed section 4.2.2.1.4 was deleted in its entirety.

Problem Statement:

As discussed in more detail in ARIN-2017-9 and noted in the ARIN 40 
Policy Experience Report, the criteria to qualify for an initial block 
of address space in 4.2.2 and 8.5.4 are seeming at odds with each other. 
At ARIN 41 the community seemed to prefer the approach contained in this 
policy over the approach in ARIN-2017-9, which was subsequently abandoned.

Moreover, as the NRPM (2018-1) currently sits, 4.2.2 appears to state 
that an initial allocation of up to a /21 could be granted without any 
more justification than needed to qualify for a /24. Therefore, 4.2.2 
should be modified, allowing an initial allocation of only a /24 without 
any additional justification and allowing an initial allocation of up to 
a /21 when justified by a 24-month allocation plan.

Policy Statement:

Replace the current Section 4.2.2 with:

4.2.2. Initial allocation to ISPs

All ISP organizations without direct assignments or allocations from 
ARIN qualify for an initial allocation of up to a /21, subject to ARIN’s 
minimum allocation size.

All ISP organizations without direct allocations, direct assignments, 
re-allocations or reassignments automatically qualify for a /24. These 
organizations are exempt from requirements of showing the efficient 
utilization of previously held IPv4 space. These organizations may 
qualify for a larger than a /24 by documenting how the requested 
allocation will be utilized within the request size specified in 4.2.4.3

ISPs holding re-allocations and/or reassignments must show the efficient 
utilization of their resources consistent with the requirements in 
sections 4.2.3 and 4.2.4

Comments:

Timetable for Implementation: Immediate

Anything Else:

This is an attempt to clarify the changes that came about from 2016-4. 
It also aligns section 4.2 with current transfer policy. It also 
re-established the understanding that ISP can renumber and return, but 
putting the last section 4.2.2.1.4 into the ISP additional requests 
section. This text is slightly modified to include returns to ARIN in 
addition to returns to the upstream.