ARIN 52 Policy Proposal Follow-up
October 31, 2023
At ARIN 52 in San Diego, all policy proposals were discussed with no conclusions. Since these proposals were all “Draft Policies,” under ARIN’s Policy Development Process, they are too new to get a sense for whether the community supports them.
Before we jump into the policies, we wanted to provide some insight on the ARIN waitlist at this time. It was addressed at the meeting that as of this past October there are 705 ARIN members on the waitlist and the wait time is expected to surpass 3 years. Currently ARIN receives around 150 requests quarterly and of those they only fill 30-50. Some potential improvements discussed were lowering the maximum allocation from a /22 and lower holdings down from /20.
Make IPv4 space last longer
Draft Policy ARIN-2023-2: /26 initial IPv4 allocation for IXPs
It was addressed that this was based off an APNIC proposal that couldn’t meet a consensus and operators “won’t waste time with /26 exchange”. The author of this proposal brought up a few edits not part of the draft, one of which was that the data used came from Peering DB which is not an accurate representation of IXP Peers, according to members in the community. A concern raised was whether this would affect previously acquired /24 blocks, to which it was clarified that this would only apply to new ones, filtering out existing. Several people who chose to participate opposed, even with edits, because they don’t want to hurt small startup IXPs. The majority of those who provided feedback were against this policy proposal. One person did suggest that with development dollars going into new internet builds, there may be many more IXPs coming online in coming years.
Registration quality
Draft Policy ARIN-2023-4: Modernization of Registration Requirements
Changing “reallocations” to “reassignments” was thought to collide with a previous proposal to delete assignment as reassignments still exist. In ARINs NRPM reallocations are defined as IP addresses sub-delegated to an organization by an upstream provider for the purpose of subsequent distribution by the recipient organization to other parties while reassignments are defined as IP addresses sub-delegated to an organization by an upstream provider for the exclusive use of the recipient organization. One member responded saying that reassignments would still be in policy and was unrelated to this change. Another topic addressed in this section was the need for further clarification on the new time frame of 14 days, no real reasoning behind the change, just provide more time.
IPv4 leasing
Draft Policy ARIN-2023-3: Amendment of the waitlist agreement to include a restriction on leasing
Majority who participated did not support this proposal. The general feedback was there needed to be a formal and agreed upon definition of “leasing” made available somewhere. While those who did support felt this was not worth pursuing or the time involved in doing so would not be well spent. APNIC’s inability to come up with a consensus on their version of this policy was referenced as well.
Policy Text Cleanup
Draft Policy ARIN-2022-12: Direct Assignment Language Update
Many felt this proposal to update the language surrounding the fee structure needed additional editing in order to be considered further, while others felt it was not needed to begin with, as they consider it to be adding to the problem instead of its proposed purpose of solving problems.
Draft Policy ARIN-2023-1: Retire 4.2.1.4 Slow Start
This draft policy proposal discussed removing 4.2.1.4, Slow Start and was generally supported by the community because it hasn’t been used in recent years and likely won’t be of use in the future. Additionally, the concern of it affecting operations was addressed, with the response it shouldn’t have any impact.
Draft Policy ARIN-2023-5: Clean-up of NRPM Sections 4.3.4, 4.4, 4.10 and 6.10.1
It was stated there would be no change in allocation process just a clarification of the text as the proposals goal is to clean-up complex language. This proposal was supported as drafted by many who decided to participate in the open forum. Some brought up the concern of what an “editorial” change should be defined as. An “Editorial Update” is defined in the PDP as “a non-substantive change to the NRPM” (Number Resource Policy Manual, that is, ARIN’s policies), but guidelines on “substantive” may be needed.
Draft Policy ARIN-2023-6: ARIN Waitlist Qualification
There was not much discussion on this proposal during the open forum, which addressed the requirements needed to receive space off the waitlist, neither for nor against. A suggestion brought up was to put these requirements in the waitlist section and get rid of this section entirely as it’s seen as no longer relevant.
Draft Policy ARIN-2023-7: Clarification of NRPM Sections 4.5 and 6.11 Multiple Discrete Networks and the addition of new section 2.18 Organizational Identifier (ORG ID)
The proposed changes were mostly supported by those in attendance. One concern that was brought up was that the definition of “org-id” needed to be expanded on. However, it was stated there is no org-id definition in RSA, if one was created it may create a conflict. The proposed benefit to provide clarity was seen as unnecessary to some. Org-id in NRPM under section 4.5 was said to be clear to some who participated in the discussion so many felt it didn’t need to change or be added to. Overall, the importance of proper punctuation was stressed, many agreed the cleanup would help if done appropriately.