Arguments Supporting the Proposal
- It allows each RIR community to define a policy on how to distribute the last piece(s) of allocations which best matches
their situation.
- It helps LIR better informed of the date when they are able to
receive allocations from RIRs under the current criteria and
prepare for the event.
[current problem]
There are two major issues in terms of address management if no
measures are taken for IPv4 address exhaustion.
1) Continue applying a global coordinated policy for distribution of
the last piece(s) of RIR's unallocated address block does not
match the reality of the situation in each RIR region.
Issues each RIR region will face during the exhaustion period vary by
region as the level of development of IPv4 and IPv6 are widely
different. As a result, applying a global co-ordinated policy may not
adequately address issues in a certain region while it could be work
for the others.
For example, in a region where late comers desperately need even small
blocks of IPv4 addresses to access to the IPv4 Internet, a policy that
defines the target of allocations/assignments of IPv4 address space to
be late comers would be appropriate in such region. This would allow
availablilty of IPv4 address space for such requirements for more
years.
Another example comes from difference in IPv6 deployment rate. For a
region where IPv6 deployment rate is low, measures may be necessary to
prolong IPv4 address life for the existing business as well as for new
businesses until networks are IPv6 ready. Some regions may have strong
needs to secure IPv4 address space for translators.
A globally coordinated policy which addresses all the issues listed
above to meet the needs for all RIR regions may result in not solving
issues in any of the regions.
2) LIRs and stakeholders remain unprepared for the situation if they
are not informed.
If LIRs and the community are uninformed of the exhaustion, their
services and networks remain unprepared to face the situation at the
time of exhaustion.
[Objective of the proposal]
This proposal seeks to provide the following solutions to the problems listed above.
1) RIR community should be able to define their own regional policies
on how to assign the last piece(s) of allocation block in order to
address their own regional issues during the exhaustion period.
2) RIRs should provide official projection of the date when LIRs will
be able to receive the allocations under the current criteria. The
criteria should remain consistent until this date in order to
avoid confusion.
Arguments Opposing the Proposal
- Concerns could be raised about allocating a fixed size to all RIRs,
that it artificially fastens the consumption rate of some RIR
regions. However, its impact is kept to minimum by keeping the
allocation size to a single /8 which makes merely 3-4 months
difference.
- Concerns could be raised that explicitly allowing regional policies
will encourage RIR shopping. However, this should not happen if the
requirements within each region is adequately reflected in each
RIR's policy through PDP. RIR may also chose to add criteria to prevent LIRs from other regions submitting such requests.
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