[address-policy-wg] Impact analysis in the PDP

* Jim Reid

> On 11 Mar 2013, at 17:28, Tore Anderson <tore at fud.no> wrote:
> 
>> Having recently been told over dinner by an NCC employee something
>> along the lines of «I don't think the RIPE Community quite realises
>> how much effort goes into implementing policy changes», I find this
>> worrisome as well. Especially considering that the Impact Analysis
>> makes an explicit point out of it.
> 
> Tore, the whole point of the Impact Analysis stage of the PDP is to
> help the community to avoid doing things that create unreasonable
> burdens on the NCC. Or invent policies which are
> unworkable/illegal/etc. In principle the community could pass a
> policy which instructs Axel to hand out €100 notes on Dam Square
> until the NCC is bankrupt or lease offices on the Space Station. So
> some sort of sanity check in the PDP is needed before policies are
> finally nailed down.
> 
> Now it would be nice if that Impact Analysis could take place earlier
> in the PDP. But that's impractical. First, it could mean the NCC was
> "making policy". Which would be bad. Next, until a rough consensus
> forms around some policy proposal, it's not necessarily clear what
> that proposal's impact on the NCC (and beyond) is likely to be.

Hi Jim,

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to tell me here, or what you think
that I was trying to say earlier? I wasn't making any complaint that the
Impact Analysis was posted too late, and I already know and agree with
everything you wrote (except for calling the Impact Analysis a stage of
the PDP, which it is not).

The Impact Analysis says, quote, «It is very relevant to note that the
implementation of this policy proposal will require a significant effort
of co-ordination between the RIPE NCC and the other RIRs».

What I was trying to say was: I agree, this is indeed "very relevant to
note", and furthermore I find it worrisome - because I was not at all
convinced that the IPv4 transfer market is actually large enough to
justify a «significant effort».

So I'd say that the Impact Analysis did exactly what it was supposed to
do in this case, by pointing out an issue that I hadn't considered, so
that I may make up a (hopefully) more informed opinion about the
proposal than I could without it.

That said, since posting my last message I also came across this
presentation, which offers a sneak preview some of the transfer stats
2012-05 will give us:

http://www.menog.org/presentations/menog-12/127-IPv4_Transfers-RIPE_NCC_Update.pdf

Slide 10 seems to suggest there's been a total of 17 transfers in the
last five months. That's *way* fewer than I expected, it does not make
sense to me to instruct the NCC to undertake a «significant effort» to
expand a so marginal service. Chairs: "do not support today".

vh,
-- 
Tore Anderson