[address-policy-wg] Re: how 200 /48's fails the job

> This policy has been in use around the world for years and apparently 
> nobody bothered to challenge it in court. So either nobody cares or the 
> legality is just fine.

Perhaps it means that nobody cares yet.

On the other hand, we have a proposed change to the policy
and two people on the list today have mentioned that they
know cases in which this policy has actually created a commercial
problem. So perhaps it means that the people who care are
willing to work within the RIPE policy process first.
Also, I believe that it puts them in a stronger position
to win a lawsuit if they can show that they did try to
resolve the problem outside the courts first.


> So being an internetwork gets you a /32, and you're an internetwork if 
> you (inter)connect at least two "IPv6 networks".
> 
> Care to define "IPv6 network"?

I think we can leverage the existing rules for allocating
a /48 and say that a /48 allocation is an IPv6 network. 
Or, more precisely, an IPv6 network is a network which
meets the requirements for a /48 allocation. Those requirements
are defined elsewhere.

> The trouble with all of this is that if we lower the bar so entities 
> that we all feel should be able to have their own prefix can get one, 
> this immediately opens the door for a whole bunch of other people who 
> shouldn't.

Policies are rarely 100% perfect. If we can make this one better
than it was, then we have succeeded.

If future experience shows that there are a whole bunch of /32
allocations going to people who shouldn't get them, then we can
change the policy at that time, when we have the benefit of greater
knowledge.

> Since internet exchanges 
> already get a prefix for the exchange fabric it seems reasonable to 
> give them a larger prefix than just one for the exchange fabric so they 
> can accommodate these other assignments as well as their own stuff from 
> this same prefix.

It does not seem reasonable to me. I don't like to see the 
policy behaviour dependent on business models. If a company
has a business model that includes internet exchange and something
else, then I think we should be prepared to deal with both aspects
of the business seperately. We treat internet exchanges as special
cases so if the same company wants to do other business then they
really should not use the same allocation for the other business.

> But what qualifies as an "internet exchange"? There are already many 
> "internet exchanges" with members that can be comfortably counted on 
> the fingers of one hand.
> 
> So rather than just remove the 200 limit and brag that we're so good at 
> predicting the future that this will NEVER pose a problem, it would be 
> good to come up with something that's actually BETTER than the current 
> policy.

If we can come up with something a LOT better, that is good. But
if we cannot come up with something a lot better then we should
make things a little bit better by removing the 200 limit.

Internet exchanges are IPv6 interconnection points that allow
companies to exchange traffic locally to avoid tromboning it 
out of the local area and back again. If an exchange has 4 members
but achieves this "path shortening" then it is an exchange.

> I was thinking about simply reusing the IPv6 policies and requiring 
> applicants to show the need for a certain number of addresses. But the 
> problem is that with IPv6 you can renumber thousands of hosts with a 
> couple of lines of router configuration. 

You make a good case here for removing the 200 limit. If, at a future
time, we find that there are too many /32s and we need to de-list some
of the allocations, then the affected operators can easily renumber as
you have pointed out. 

--Michael Dillon