[address-policy-wg] relevant panel discussion from INET Denver

At the ARIN meeting last week The RIPE 2013-3 proposal was discussed extensively at two "lunch table talks," one of which I attended. 
On the day I attended, there was very little attempt to defend needs assessments per se. The comments centered instead on how passage of 2013-3 would prevent inter-RIR transfers until and unless ARIN followed suit. Assessments of the likelihood of that happening differed. Some felt that once RIPE took the first step and demonstrated that the world did not end, ARIN would be likely to follow suit; others felt that RIPE would reverse its policy and institute some perfunctory, liberalized form of needs assessment in order to qualify for inter-RIR transfers.

Also, I'd like address this claim of Tore's:

> That said: I don't really consider 2013-03 a "transfer policy proposal".
> My motivation for making the proposal is to reduce the bureaucracy and
> paperwork required to operate my LIR and make assignments to my
> customers. I would still have made the proposal even if the current
> address policy didn't have any provisions allowing for transfers to
> begin with.
 
Really? Post-depletion, all IPv4 allocations will be through transfers. While eliminating needs assessments will reduce bureaucracy, if there are no transfers under what conditions would RIPE-NCC be doing IPv4 needs assessments? 


Milton L. Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
Internet Governance Project
http://blog.internetgovernance.org