[address-policy-wg] 2009-01 New Policy Proposal (Global Policy for the Allocation of IPv4 blocks to Regional Internet Registries)

This policy is intended to be a global policy and thus has been
submitted in each region.  I wrote up my thoughts and concerns and
posted to them to the ARIN mailing list - but they are relevant to all
regions so I thought I would submit them here to help start a
conversation about this policy.

I don't really have an opinion as to whether the concept is
good/worthwhile yet - but I have a lot of concerns about how this
would work, what the repercussions could be and whether it is worth
it.  As written, I'm currently opposed to this policy.

Here's a run down of my questions/concerns.

It is not clear whether it is mandatory that RIR's proactively recover
space, but it sounds as though it is mandatory that recovered space be
turned over to IANA.  Is this a conflict?  Does this create a
dis-incentive to recover space?

If address space is returned to an RIR, and they have an immediate
need for that space, can they assign it?  or *must* they wait for the
quarterly interval and return it to IANA?  IMO, they shouldn't be
forced to return it if they have requests within their region that
could be met by reassigning the recovered space.

Does this have the potential to break/change rDNS delegations?
Geo-location stuff?  RPKI?

What effect would this have on the RIR's db's?  How much work would it
be on staff and the db's to break up their aggregates in order to
return something?

What does this do to aggregation?  How will preferences to aggregation
be made? It sounds like first come, first serve.. gets the most
aggregated prefixes.

It sounds as though you can't return space after phase1, is this
correct? Intentional?

Whatever space starts in the queue by definition could be depleted in
1 year, if each RIR makes a request each 6 months.  Is it worth it to
extend the "free pool" for one year?  Especially if there is no
incentive/proactive process to recover space?  If RIR's can reassign
returned space until the quarterly interval, there may be little if
anything to return to IANA.

I think this policy doesn't really do anything to extend the free pool
or soften the blow of depletion.  I imagine there would be the least
amount of address space in the queue the first year when it is most
needed.  If a mechanism to return space after phase 1 existed - the
amount of space to delegate could go up - but probably wouldn't for
several years, until IPv6 adoption took hold.

--Heather

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 10:12 AM, Filiz Yilmaz <filiz at ripe.net> wrote:
> PDP Number: 2009-01
> Global Policy for the Allocation of IPv4 blocks to Regional Internet Registries
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> A new RIPE Policy Proposal has been made and is now available for
> discussion.
>
> You can find the full proposal at:
>
>    http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2009-01.html
>
> We encourage you to review this proposal and send your comments to
> <address-policy-wg at ripe.net> before 19 March 2009.
>
> Regards
>
> Filiz Yilmaz
> Policy Development Officer
> RIPE NCC
>
>