[address-policy-wg] 2012-02 New Draft Document and Impact Analysis Published (Policy for Inter-RIR Transfers of IPv4 Address Space)

* Scott Leibrand

> One point I think is worth mentioning in this thread: you
> referenced http://www.menog.org/presentations/menog-12/127-IPv4_Transfers-RIPE_NCC_Update.pdf
> and the fact that there have been only 17 transactions to date, as an
> argument that 2012-02 is less of a priority than 2012-13.   One thing
> that really stuck out to me from that presentation was the fact that
> there was "Currently 6,144 IPs offered vs 1,714,176 requested" on the
> RIPE listing service.  I have also heard that many organizations seeking
> to obtain addresses via transfer in the RIPE region are having trouble
> doing so, because of the scarcity of supply.  This has undoubtedly
> reduced the volume of transactions.  I have also heard that it is
> resulting in organizations setting for much less space than they'd like
> due to the high price (relative to the prevailing market price in the
> ARIN and APNIC regions).
> 
> Given that, I do think it is important to pass a compatible inter-RIR
> transfer policy as soon as feasible, to allow organizations in the RIPE
> region to get access to resources from other regions.

Well, the community response to 2012-02 hasn't exactly been overly
enthusiastic either. That, plus the small amount of in-region transfers
seen so far, makes me of the opinion that the entire transfer market
thing is rather over-hyped. (I've heard that there are more space
available for sale in the region than what's listed in the LIR Portal
though. Sellers might opt to use a broker instead of the listing
service, for example.)

That said, I'm not opposed to 2012-02 per se - I'm just convinced that
2013-03 is going to be more important and beneficial to the day-to-day
operations of the majority of LIRs in our region. I don't feel it's
right to insist on a continued bureaucracy enforced on *all* the LIRs in
the region for the sole purpose of allowing a fraction of those LIRs to
engage in inter-region allocation trade with ARIN.

If the continued bureaucracy could be a voluntary thing for those LIRs
that wanted to trade with ARIN, then it'd be different. Maybe if 2012-02
said something like "If you receive space from ARIN you agree that the
space is bound by ARIN's address policies with regards to need
justification for 24 months"? Probably easier to say than do, I guess...

I have no problems seeing 2012-02 pass alongside 2013-03. Those two
policy proposals aren't in conflict in any way. While the resulting
total would be in conflict with ARIN, we would have enabled for
transfers to/from APNIC. And the door would then automatically open for
ARIN too, the moment they rescind the need requirement in their end.
Same goes for AfriNIC and LACNIC too, the moment they pass appropriate
policy in their end.

> Perhaps the key would be to have RIPE continue doing needs assessment on
> transfers, while allowing LIRs to reassign space to customers without
> any particular requirements.

Problem with this is that I don't think ARIN would be satisified:

LIR: «Hey NCC, can you give us the "need certificate" so we can justify
the transfer of a /8 from the ARIN region?»
NCC: «Well, describe your need for the allocation then.»
LIR: «We want to make an assignment of 1 billion addresses to the coffee
maker in our office.»
NCC: «Does your coffee maker really need 1 billio...oh wait, that's a
completely valid assignment nowadays. Here's your need certificate!»

This is why I made 2013-03 remove the need concept for allocations. It
simply does not make sense to keep it, because once you remove the need
concept at the lowest level (i.e., assignments), the entire chain upward
collapses and it makes no sense to keep the need concept around any
longer at any level.

Tore