[address-policy-wg] Potential Improvements to the Temporary Internet Number Assignment Policies

Dear colleagues of the Address Policy Working Group,

During the last RIPE Meeting in May, I presented on several observations 
that the Registration Services department had [1]. After receiving some 
feedback during the meeting, it was agreed to continue the discussion on 
the mailing list before RIPE 85.

One of the topics discussed was the challenges encountered when dealing 
with temporary assignment requests. A specific policy allows the RIPE 
NCC to assign Internet Number resources on a temporary basis for a 
specific time-limited purpose, such as academic research and 
experimental purposes, conferences and other types of events. [2]

Over the past years, the RIPE NCC has received some requests for 
academic research that required only a few IPv4 addresses for actual 
experiments, but within a routable prefix.
This created a conflict with the current policy which requires the use 
of at least 50% of the requested IPv4 address space. With some 
creativity, the RIPE NCC has been able to approve these requests so far, 
but this has resulted in unnecessary delays in processing these 
requests. It is also possible that people have been refraining from 
submitting a request because of this policy limitation.

One possible solution would be to review the current policy and propose 
a policy change, for example the introduction of a minimum IPv4 
assignment size.

Does the working group agree that this is an issue that should be 
discussed and that might require a policy change?

Kind regards,
Marco Schmidt
Manager Registration Services
RIPE NCC

[1] https://ripe84.ripe.net/archives/video/786/
[2] https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-587