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Global Policy for Allocation of ASN Blocks to Regional Internet Registries | (Ratified by ICANN Board on 31 July 2008) | (Obsoleted September 2010)

Abstract

This document describes the policy governing the allocation of Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) from the IANA to the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).

This policy document does not stipulate performance requirements in the provision of services by the IANA to an RIR. Such requirements will be specified by appropriate agreements between ICANN and the Number Resource Organization (NRO).

  1. Allocation Principles
  2. IANA allocates ASNs to RIRs in blocks of 1024 ASNs. In this document the term "ASN block" refers to a set of 1024 ASNs. Until 31 December 2009, allocations of 2-byte only and 4-byte only ASN blocks will be made separately and independent of each other[1]. This means until 31 December 2009, RIRs can receive two separate ASN blocks, one for 2-byte only ASNs and one for 4-byte only ASNs from the IANA under this policy. After this date, IANA and the RIRs will cease to make any distinction between 2-byte only and 4-byte only ASNs, and will operate ASN allocations from an undifferentiated 4-byte ASN allocation pool.

  3. Initial Allocations
  4. Each new RIR will be allocated a new ASN block.

  5. Additional Allocations
  6. An RIR is eligible to receive (an) additional ASN block(s) from the IANA if one of the following conditions is met:

    1. The RIR has assigned or allocated 80% of the previously received ASN block; or
    2. The number of free ASNs currently held by the RIR is less than its two month need. This projection is based on the monthly average number of ASNs assigned or allocated by the RIR over the previous six months.

    An RIR will be allocated as many ASN blocks as are needed to support their registration needs for the next 12 months, based on their average rate of assignment or allocation over the previous six months, unless the RIR specifically requests fewer blocks than those for which it qualifies.

  7. Announcement of IANA Allocations
  8. The IANA, the NRO and the RIRs will make announcements and update their respective websites/databases when an allocation is made by the IANA to an RIR. ICANN and the NRO will establish administrative procedures to manage this process.

    [1] Various regional 4-byte ASN policies, including:

    http://www.afrinic.net/docs/policies/afpol-asn200708.htm

    http://www.apnic.net/policy/proposals/prop-032-v002.html

    http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2005-12.html

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."