[address-policy-wg] 2013-03 New Policy Proposal (No Need - Post-Depletion Reality Adjustment and Cleanup)

Hello Scott,

* Scott Leibrand

> While I support the goals of 2013-03 in a post-IPv4-depletion world, we
> are currently in an uncomfortable intermediate state where IPv4
> depletion has occurred in some regions (RIPE and APNIC) but not in
> others (ARIN, LACNIC, and AfriNIC).  I think it will be wise to wait
> until IPv4 depletion to remove of (at least some) needs requirements in
> those regions that still have an IPv4 free pool.

Geoff Huston's http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html projects
that global IPv4 depletion won't happen until July 2020, when AfriNIC is
set to deplete as the last of the five RIRs. That is a *long* time to
keep around a bureaucracy that no longer serves any purpose.

> As a result of the fact of remaining RIR free pools, and the current
> policy and sentiment in the ARIN region that inter-RIR IPv4 transfers
> should occur only to organizations/regions that justify need for the
> addresses (to avoid a run on said free pool), I think it would be wise
> to do something like this:
> 
>  - First, pass an inter-RIR transfer policy in the RIPE region that is
> compatible with both the APNIC and ARIN inter-RIR transfer policies
> (i.e. has some form of needs justification).
>  - Second, make sure that RIPE's transfer policy serves all
> organizations in the RIPE region, including those who in the past got PI
> space from RIPE.
>  - Third, relax the ARIN region's inter-RIR transfer policy such that
> after IPv4 depletion in the ARIN region, transfers are allowed to
> regions with policies like 2013-03.
>  - Fourth, pass something along the lines of 2013-03 in the RIPE region
> (to take effect) after IPv4 depletion has occurred in the ARIN region.
>  - Fifth, update policy in other regions as well to align policy with
> the needs of a post-IPv4-depletion world.
> 
> I'm more than happy to help drive #3 and eventually #5 in the ARIN region.

While I see and acknowledge that 2013-03 conflicts with ARIN's need
requirement for inter-region transfers, and that this is a valid
argument against the proposed policy, I do feel that this argument alone
is not strong enough to to stop 2013-03, for the following reasons:

1) It is entirely dependent on proposal 2012-02 passing, which is far
from a certainty. 2012-02 has received at best a lukewarm response from
the community - according to the chairs, it has, quote, «far from
consensus». Should 2012-02 not pass, 2013-03's conflict with ARIN's need
requirement is completely irrelevant.

2) According to Ingrid Wijte's MENOG12 presentation
(http://www.menog.org/presentations/menog-12/127-IPv4_Transfers-RIPE_NCC_Update.pdf),
there have been only a measly 17 permanent transfers in the RIPE region
in the last three months. It would surprise me greatly if the amount of
assignments having been made by the LIRs in the same period is not at
least two orders of magnitude more.

Choosing to uphold the need justification and documentation bureaucracy
for all those assignments that we LIRs perform on a frequent basis, for
the sole purpose of allowing only one specific flavour of the very
rarely used allocation transfer mechanism to work, seems to me to fail a
very basic cost-benefit analysis.

3) The RIPE community's benefit of allowing transfers from the ARIN
region into the RIPE region is only obvious due to the fact that ARIN
still has remaining free space in their address pool. «They've still got
more space, let's go grab as much of it as we can before it's all gone!»

It is not certain that it is a net benefit to the RIPE community to
allow transfers with depleted regions. The result may very well be that
more address space is being transferred *out* of our region, than what
is coming in - further exacerbating our depletion ordeal. This
uncertainty makes the cost-benefit analysis I mentioned in #2 even more
clear in favour of 2013-03.

According to Geoff Huston, ARIN looks set to deplete exactly one year
from now. Keeping in mind that 2012-02 appears to still have a long way
to go in the PDP, the time period during which the benefit of allowing
free trade with ARIN is obvious is only going to be a few months at
most. Quite possibly, ARIN will deplete before 2012-02 gets implemented,
if so the obvious beneficial period will not exist at all.

4) Again, ARIN is soon depleting. As I mentioned in the proposal itself,
this might cause the ARIN community to do a reality adjustment similar
to 2013-03, and rescind the need requirement for inter-region transfers.
After all, there is little point in trying to prevent other regions from
"bleeding them dry" if they have nothing left anyway. So that's your
item #3, essentially. If you're willing to suggest that to the ARIN
community now, I'm all for it.

Best regards,
Tore Anderson