[address-policy-wg] Assignment transfer among LIR

On 22/05/2012 14:15, Pascal Gloor wrote:
> 	- RIPE NCC will allocate the needed space (out of the
> 'reserved-for-new-LIR' space) to LIB B, but not larger than the original
> one.
> 	- RIPE NCC will inform LIR A about the transfer and will request the
> space to be returned.
> 	- If LIR A cannot return the space (deaggregation?), RIPE NCC will freeze
> (how?) it.

Pascal,

Difficult to implement in practice, because ip addresses are assigned under
specific conditions and changing them retrospectively is Hard.
Specifically, the two problems that I see are that if LIR A has assigned a
bunch of IP addresses to a customer:

1.  LIR A will not want to lose those IP addresses because in the ipv4
depletion era, they will have nominal trading value.

2.  LIR A will also want to use them for customer stickiness.

So if the customer moves to LIR B, then there are two policy options for
customers in that situation:

a) convert all PA space to PI space
b) leave as-is

Difficult to see how scenario a could be achieved legally.  And in scenario
b, LIR A may use the IP addresses either to keep the customer or else to
charge them a fortune for departing with those IP addresses.  The value
will be determined to some extent by the going market rate for IP addresses
+ the nominal cost of getting the customer to renumber.  Not cheap, and
highly prone to abuse.

IOW, I don't see any clear solutions to this problem for existing contracts.

Nick