[address-policy-wg] PA policy

On 07/07/2015 13:31, Kennedy, James wrote:
> At the risk of sounding naïve, I have a question regarding the
> legitimate usage of PA address space. That is, what *type* of network or
> End User can it be assigned to.
> 
> "LIRs are allocated Provider Aggregatable (PA) address space. They
> sub-allocate and assign this to *downstream networks*." 
> https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-643#7
> 
> To me this reads networks or End Users assigned PA space must receive
> transit from the LIR holding the parent allocation.
> 
> Or can the LIR assign PA blocks to customers/companies that don't
> receive transit, or any other technical network service for that matter,
> from the LIR?

There are two separate things going on here.

1. LIRs can assign PA blocks for any reason at all since policy 2013-03 was
accepted.

2. if an end user receives a PA block from LIR1 and then attempts to route
it out through a different network who operates LIR2, that's an issue for
the end user, LIR1 and LIR2 to resolve.  The RIPE NCC is not the routing
police and has no policy basis to intervene.

Situation #2 is relatively common and becoming more so.

>From an end user point of view, it's a pretty damned stupid thing to do
because if the end user terminates their business relationship with LIR1,
then they terminate any rights to use the address space they received from
LIR1.  This puts the them in the situation where their business continuity
depends on a contractual relationship with a single supplier.  Not clever.

>From the point of view of LIR1, some LIRs run with this as a business model
in order to prevent customers moving away.

>From the point of view of LIR2, this often ends up causing problems between
them, the end user and LIR1.

Nick