[address-policy-wg] 2013-06 New Policy Proposal (PA/PI Unification IPv6 Address Space)

* Nick Hilliard

> So how could you convince the existing ipv6 PI holders that the cost
> increase from €50/year to LIR membership fees would be worth it?

Quoting myself from before:

Q: They wouldn't want to pay the full membership price for being LIRs!
A: We don't have to make them. It could be possible to be a RIPE region
LIR even though you're not a direct/full member of the RIPE NCC. RIPE
NCC members could be seen as "sponsors of LIR status" instead of
"sponsors for PI blocks". It could even cost the same €50 as before.

This proposal, the way I see it, creates a new class of End Users who
are for all practical purposes LIRs. Quoting the definition from the
policy document:

2.1 Internet Registry (IR)

An Internet Registry is an organisation that is responsible for
distributing IP address space to its members or customers and for
registering those distributions. IRs are classified according to their
primary function and territorial scope within the hierarchical structure
depicted in the figure above.

[...]

2.3 Local Internet Registry (LIR)

A Local Internet Registry (LIR) is an IR that primarily sub-allocates
address space to the users of the network services that it provides.


If you look at the figure in section 2.0, the "End User" box on the
right adjacent to the "Sponsoring LIR" one ... that End User is an LIR.
It exactly matches the definition, at least - the only difference
appears to be in the name. If it walks like an LIR, talks like an LIR...

So let's try replacing the "End User" label on that box with "LIR". Now
the two trees below the RIPE NCC are identical, except for the presence
of the "Sponsoring LIR" box on the right. But that's a
contractual/billing-related mechanism that doesn't really have anything
to do with the internet registry system per se. So I think we can just
as well remove it from the address policy¹, and we are left with two
completely identical hierarchies.

[1] Not saying it should be removed as a contractual/billing-related
mechanism as currently used, but I don't think it is necessary to
specify it in the policy document just like we don't specify the RIPE
NCC fees in there either.

> This won't fly.  We need to be practical about a workable policy proposal
> here.  Whether we like it or not, there is a strong history of cost
> differentiation in terms of how ip addresess are handled, and I don't see a
> practical way of levelling the field within the constraints of what's
> workable and what we'd ultimately like.

I'm not saying we should start charging the traditional PI holders more
than we do today. Just that if we're going to grant them "LIR powers",
which this proposal does (and I don't disagree with that), we might as
well start calling them "LIRs" as well. A spade is a spade.

Tore