portable address space

Dear all,

At the upcoming RIPE meeting next week, the RIPE NCC will put forward
a proposal attempting to clarify current policy on
independent/portable address space. We are seeking the communities
input on this matter. 

The RIPE NCC is currently experiencing an increased demand for
portable address space, clearly visible through the amount of new
members signing up from a need for portable address space but also
through the amount of PI (Provider Independent) address requests
received at the RIPE NCC.  

At this time there is no clear and consistent policy on any of these
types of portable address space. 

- PI address space is discouraged and requestors are informed of
disadvantages with PI space and what possible implications there may
be. However, there are no criteria for obtaining PI address space.


- PA allocations can be obtained by anyone who is a member of the RIPE
NCC. (The RIPE NCC membership is open.) The LIR is only required to
justify the first assignment out of that address block. 


As all members are required to request and justify each assignment
made to customers or own infrastructure, we feel that current poorly
defined PA Allocation criteria create an inconsistency in policy. In
practice it means that anyone justifying the need of one IP address
can receive a PA allocation (currently a /20 = 4096 addresses). This
has resulted in an enormous growth of new members over the last three years. 

Whilst ARIN has a clearly defined policy on portable address space,
APNIC has experienced the same dilemma as the RIPE NCC with their
similar policies on portable address space. This was brought up and
discussed at the APNIC meeting in Kuala Lumpur, March 2001. (see URL
below.)


As demonstrated in several recent studies of the changes in the
Internet over the last years, it is clear that there is an increase
of multi-homing taking place globally, an increase of smaller routes
being announced in the Internet and an increased need for portable
address space. 


The RIPE NCC wishes to develop a clear and consistent policy for
portable address space in a realistic and pragmatic manner that also
accommodates this increased need for portable address space.


We will at the upcoming lir-wg meeting present statistics showing this
trend and suggest possible steps forward. We wish to request the
communities input in this discussion and we look forward to a fruitful
discussion. 


Kind regards

Nurani Nimpuno
Registration Services Manager
RIPE NCC
http://www.ripe.net


REFERENCES:
--------------------
Policy documentation:
"European Internet Registry Policies and Procedures", section 3.4.2.PA
vs PI Space 
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-185.html#toc34

"Provider Independent versus Provider Aggregatable Address Space"
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-127.html

APNIC policy documentation:
http://www.apnic.net/docs/add-manage-policy.html

ARIN policy documentation:
http://www.arin.net/regserv.html

Presentations and papers:
"Architectural Requirements for Inter-Domain Routing in the Internet"
- Geoff Huston
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-iab-bgparch-00.txt

"The State of BGP routing"
http://www.telstra.net/gih/papers/ietf/ietf50-plenary.pdf

"Consistent and realistic policy framework for 'Portable' allocation
and assignment" - Paul Wilson
http://www.apnic.net/meetings/presentations/pa-pi-criteria.ppt

Global policy document:
"RIR comparative Policy Overview"
http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/mem-services/registration/rir-comp-matrix-rev.html