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Introduction

Global Internet Number Resource Policies are defined by the ASO MOU - between ICANN and the NRO - as "Internet number resource policies that have the agreement of all RIRs according to their policy development processes and ICANN, and require specific actions or outcomes on the part of IANA or any other external ICANN-related body in order to be implemented". Attachment A of this MOU describes the Development Process of Global Internet Number Resource Policies, including the adoption by every RIR of a global policy to be forwarded to the ICANN Board by the ASO, as well as its ratification by the ICANN Board. In this context, the ICANN Board adopted its own Procedures for the Review of Internet Number Resource Policies Forwarded by the ASO for Ratification.

Among other features, these Procedures state that the Board will decide, as and when appropriate, that ICANN staff should follow the development of a particular global policy, undertaking an “early awareness” tracking of proposals in the addressing community. To this end, staff should issue background reports periodically, forwarded to the Board, to all ICANN Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees and posted at the ICANN Web site.

At its meeting on 20 November 2007, the Board resolved to request tracking of the development of a global policy proposal for allocation of remaining IPv4 address space, under discussion in the Regional Internet Registries. The status overview presented below is compiled in response to this request and will be further updated as developments proceed, for information to ICANN entities and the wider community. This is the fifth issue of the tracking of this policy.

Status Overview

Originally, two slightly different global policy proposals were introduced for allocation of the remaining IPv4 address space:

• A version (1) “Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space”, first presented at LACNIC X in May 2007
• A version (2) “End Policy for IANA IPv4 allocations to RIRs”, first presented at APNIC 24 in September 2007

Both featured the same approach, distribution of an equal number N of /8 IPv4 address blocks to each RIR when the IANA free pool would reach the threshold value of 5xN, but differed in the proposed value of N, notably 2 or 1, respectively. The proposals were discussed in parallel in the RIRs and regarded essentially as one proposal, with a view to converging on a value for N. In February 2008, agreement was reached for a unified proposal (3). The current proposal is thus:

• Version (3) “Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space”, first presented at APNIC 25 in February 2008

The proposal was introduced at the subsequent meetings of all other RIRs. It has now been adopted in ARIN, AfriNIC, LACNIC, RIPE and APNIC. The proposal will next be handled by the NRO EC and the ASO AC according to their procedures before being submitted to the ICANN Board for ratification. The table below outlines the steps taken within each RIR for the current proposal. Hyperlinks are included for easy access. An additional table shows the history of previous proposals.

It should be noted that other policy proposals have been put forward and are being discussed regarding IPv4 address space exhaustion, although only those mentioned above have been scoped as global policy proposals in the sense of the ASO MoU, i.e. focusing on address allocation from IANA to the RIRs, and recognized by the ASO AC as global policy proposals in that meaning.

Status of current proposal (3) - for previous proposal history see separate table

History - previous proposals (1) and (2)