The Upcoming Policy Discussion at ARIN 53

April 12, 2024

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is hosting their 53rd Public Policy and Members Meeting in Bridgetown, Barbados from April 14th 2024 – April 17th 2024. During this meeting, members of the ARIN community will discuss pending policy proposals, the state of the ARIN waitlist, the state of ARIN’s financial status and more.

The proposals up for discussion during ARIN 53 include:

Policy Language Typo Correction

On March 1st, 2024, ARIN-prop-330: Edit 6.5.8.3 Section 2 was submited for review by ARIN. The proposal seeks to correct policy language from “When possible subsequent assignments will result it the expansion of an existing assignment by one or more nibble boundaries as justified.” to “When possible subsequent assignments will result in the expansion of an existing assignment by one or more nibble boundaries as justified.”. The ARIN Advisory Council (AC) discussed this proposal at their March 21st 2024 meeting and accepted the proposal as Editorial Update  ARIN-edit-2024-3 and posted it to the Public Policy Mailing List (PPML) for community review on March 26th, 2024.

Codify WHOIS Point of Contact Requirements

Proposed on February 9th, 2024,  ARIN-prop-329: WHOIS Data Requirements Policy for Non-Personal Information seeks to clearly define the requirements for point of contact (POC) information in ARIN’s WHOIS database. As these requirements are not codified, there is a risk for the database to violate ever evolving data privacy laws regarding personally identifying information (PII) resulting in redactions in other WHOIS databases. This policy update would expand the Number Resource Policy Manual (NRPM) policy section 3.8 to include language that states that “All organization registration records will be visible in the public Whois.” And what POC information is required. The AC advanced this proposal to the status of Draft Policy and posted it to the PPML on March 26th 2024 as Draft Policy ARIN-2024-2. So far, this proposal is supported by the community as there have been issues in the past related to inaccurate POC information in the ARIN WHOIS database.

Add the Definition of Organization ID/Org ID to the NRPM

Submitted on December 18th, 2023, ARIN-prop-328: Definition of Organization ID/Org ID proposes that the definition of an Organization ID (OrgID) should be added to section “2.Definitions” of the NRPM. The new definition is proposed to be section “2.18. Organization Identifier (Org ID): An Organizational Identifier (Org ID) is a record that represents a business, non-profit corporation, or government entity in the ARIN database. An entity must have an Organizational Identifier (Org ID) to request Internet Number Resources.”. This definition addition was part of  Draft Policy ARIN-2023-7 but was removed from that proposal due to community feedback that this would need further discussion. The goal of this proposal is to ensure that the term “OrgID” is used consistently throughout the NRPM, and other publications by ARIN. After reviewing the proposal, the AC posted it to the PPML on January 31st, 2024 for community review as Draft Policy ARIN-2024-1.

The community determined that the language of the initially proposed for the definition of an OrgID was too specific and excluded natural persons as resource holders. In response to this, the proposed definition was updated to read “An Organization Identifier (Org ID) is an identifier assigned to resource holders in the ARIN registry.” The revision was posted to the PPML and the Draft Policy ARIN-2024-1 page on February 7th, 2024. This update was met with some push back in the PPML due to its phrasing as it seems that an organization would need to have resources before receiving an OrgID, when the opposite is true. Currently, there is no agreed upon definition for an OrgID among the PPML participants and they continue to discuss this matter.

Reduce the Maximum Allocation of IPv4 from the Waitlist from /22 to /24

In an effort to reduce the wait time on the ARIN waitlist, ARIN-prop-327: Reduce 4.18 maximum allocation was proposed on October 26th, 2023. The changes to the policy would involve the following:

  • Reducing the maximum size aggregate an organization can qualify for from a /22 to a /24.
  • Disqualifying any organization from requesting space if they have had IPv4 space in the past (except in cases covered under sections 4.4 or 4.10).
  • Add the requirement for waiting list recipients to show need for a /24 on an operating network.
  • Reduce the initial allocation size for ISP organizations without direct assignments from up to a /22 to a fixed /24.

This new policy would apply to new waitlist applicants and the goal, as previously stated, is to reduce how long organizations must wait for an allocation of IPv4 addresses from ARIN. The AC accepted this proposal and posted it to the PPML on November 21st, 2023 as Draft Policy  ARIN-2023-8. A revision was then posted on February 14th, 2024 as the section numbers referenced in the proposal were corrected. All community discussion of the proposal took place after the revision.

The most opposition to this proposal has been regarding the reduction of the maximum size aggregate from /22 to /24 as there are businesses that need more than a /24 as an initial allocation. An alternative to this reduction is the idea that if a legitimate business needs space urgently, they should go the route of purchasing IPv4 space instead of utilizing the waitlist and increasing wait times. Others have proposed that instead of limiting the maximum size IPv4 block that can be requested, a new prioritization process be introduced that considers how long an organization has been on the list and how much space they are requesting. This way, an organization requesting a /24 may be able to receive their space within six months instead of waiting years behind another organization requesting a /22. Another concern brought up in the PPML discussion is that change in policy could be unenforceable and have many loopholes that may be exploited. The counter argument to this being that ARIN has the capability to develop checks and balances to ensure all organizations on the waitlist qualify for the IPv4 space they request. Finally, there was a debate on the ethics of organizations that already have an allocation of IPv4 applying to receive space from the ARIN waitlist.

Registration Quality

Draft Policy ARIN-2023-4 was reported on and discussed at ARIN 52 in San Diego, California.   Since that conference, the AC advanced the proposal to the status of Recommended Draft Policy status on December 28th, 2023. The Draft Policy was then revised and posted on January 17th, 2024. The few community comments provided centered on removing outdated terms in addition in to the language modernization this proposal calls for in NRPM sections 4.2.3.7.1 and 6.5.5.1. A corrected copy of this proposal was also posted on March 6th 2024.

Policy Text Cleanup

The following policies were also previously reported on and discussed at ARIN 52  in San Diego, California.

ARIN 53 will have two policy sessions. The first policy session (Policy Block #1-4) will take place on Monday, April 15th, 2024 and include discussion on ARIN-2023-1, ARIN-2023-4, ARIN-2022-12, and  ARIN-2024-1. The second policy session (Policy Break #5-9) will take place on Tuesday, April 16th, 2024 and include discussion on ARIN-2023-5, ARIN-2023-7, ARIN-2023-6, ARIN-2023-8, and ARIN-2024-2. A Live Stream of these sessions will be available and to join the conversation, free registration (virtual and in-person) is also available.  

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