[address-policy-wg] A question

* Wilfried Woeber

> ...and, depending on what the distribution of customer assignments
> across the overall address space looks like, you may be able to use
> the suballocation mechanism.
> 
> Admittedly, I have never used that or did any in-depth analysis of
> the possibilities. Just a hint to maybe also look at. I may be fully
> off-track, too.

I think both you and Elvis are spot-on.

There are even more options than the three already mentioned...

4) If the assignments in question are made to the new spun off company's
own infrastructure (which may include separate end-users or customers if
they're single-address such as the DHCP pool of a broadband ISP, cf.
ripe-606 section 6.2), then the old company/LIR may simply delegate the
blocks to the new company by registering completely standard ASSIGNED PA
inetnums. In this case there are no minimum size limits to worry about
(sub-allocations are limited at /24, transfers at /22 as Elvis noted).

5) In the case that #4 doesn't work because the customers of the new
company have specific (non-pooled) assignments, the new company could
simply contract the old company to provide the registry services
directly for them. In other words that the old company will continue to
maintain the assignments in the database for each individual
(non-pooled) customer of the new company. This option would obviously
require a tight working relationship between the new and old companies,
as every time the new company lands a new customer, they the old company
must register the associated assignment.

Those two options, as well as the sub-allocation option, have the added
benefit that they're cheaper for the new company, as it doesn't have to
become an LIR on its own and pay the NCC membership fee.

In any case, Nigel's problem statement is very similar to the one
presented by Sascha Pollok in Athens as the rationale for 2013-05:

https://ripe67.ripe.net/archives/video/32/
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2013-05

Considering that 2013-05 blitzed through the PDP with hardly any
opposition, I'd say that Nigel's worry that moving around the addresses
in the manner described is considered "reprehensible" is completely
unfounded; "totally OK" would be more accurate, I think.

Tore