[address-policy-wg] RE: moratorium on IPv4 allocations when the last /8 goes

> Suppose this hypothetical policy was in force. An LIR has a 
> business need for more IPv4 after this moratorium applied. At 
> that point the NCC is sitting on a stockpile of addresses but 
> isn't handing them out.  
> What will the LIR do?
> 	(a) sit back and politely wait an indefinite but 
> probably long time until some analysis is done and the AP WG 
> arrives at a consensus on how the remaining stockpile is to 
> be managed;
> 	(b) reach for its lawyers
> 	(c) complain to government/regulator about restraint of 
> trade, anti- competitive behaviour, unfair markets, etc.

All of the above. But they will also file an application with
RIPE which will be included in the list of LIR applications 
that RIPE publishes before holding the general meeting which
will decide how much address space to give out.

The wheels of the legal and regulatory system spin slowly, and
it is highly likely that the general meeting will be over before
any judicial authorities review the complaint. In addition, RIPE
has lawyers too, as do other LIRs who are willing to wait for
a fair solution to play out.

The fair solution is for everyone to get the same amount of time
to continue growing their IPv4 stockpile. To do that we need to
know RIPE's run-rate, and the run-rates of every LIR that needs
some IPv4 allocations after the IANA runout. Instead of making
up arbitrary allocations sizes today, we can balance the time
factor and round off to the nearest /24.

--Michael Dillon