[address-policy-wg] The final /8 policy proposals, part 3.1

Hello again,

I'm trying to keep this policy proposal discussion on-topic. We have already
discussed two parts, and we should really focus on this third part now. If
we keep going back to the beginning we will never get work done...

I'll repeat my questions to the list:
- If a company demonstrates the need for a /20, we could give them (for
example) a /26. Smaller organisations would end up with even smaller
amounts of address space. Currently prefixes longer than a /24 can not
really be routed on 'the Internet' (for some definition of 'Internet'). Do
we expect this to change, or do we have to make the minimum allocation
size a /24 so that LIRs receiving address space can use it?

- Do we want a maximum allocation size? This might be useful to prevent a
few large companies to grab most of the address space, but it might also
be unnecessary.

- Do we want to make exceptions for certain situations where downscaling
is not possible? For example a server farm with many HTTPS sites can't use
less IP addresses than the number of websites (with the current
protocols).

Jim is suggesting that we don't change any policies for the final /8. That
would be a downscaling factor of 1. With the current allocation rate of
the RIPE NCC (see http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html, graph 28e)
that would mean that the final /8 will be allocated in about 4 to 6
months. Michael proposed to hold a meeting to divide the final /8.

After that happens a new entrant will not be able to get any IPv4
addresses from the NCC. This might be seen as the established companies
(us) trying to prevent new competition... We now have the chance to
prevent that situation, and we should make good policies now to prevent
that from happening. At least in the first couple of years after IANA runs
out of IPv4 addresses.

We can't just think about the current LIRs. If we do a
bad/anti-competitive/etc job here some governments will have a good excuse
to take the IP address allocation right away from the RIPE community. They
might leave us alone, but do we really want to count on that?

Thank you,
Sander Steffann
APWG co-chair