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Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Policy For Allocation of IPv6 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries | (Ratified 7 September 2006)

Policy statement

This document describes the policy governing the allocation of IPv6 address space from the IANA to the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). This document does not stipulate performance requirements in the provision of services by IANA to an RIR in accordance with this policy. Such requirements will be specified by appropriate agreements between ICANN and the NRO.

1. Allocation Principles

The unit of IPv6 allocation (and therefore the minimum IPv6 allocation) from IANA to an RIR is a /12

The IANA will allocate sufficient IPv6 address space to the RIRs to support their registration needs for at least an 18 month period.

The IANA will allow for the RIRs to apply their own respective chosen allocation and reservation strategies in order to ensure the efficiency and efficacy of their work.

2. Initial Allocations

On inception of this policy, each current RIR with less than a /12 unallocated address space, shall receive an IPv6 allocation from IANA

Any new RIR shall, on recognition by ICANN receive an IPv6 allocation from the IANA

3. Additional Allocations

A RIR is eligible to receive additional IPv6 address space from the IANA when either of the following conditions are met.

The RIR's AVAILABLE SPACE of IPv6 addresses is less than 50% of a /12.

The RIR's AVAILABLE SPACE of IPv6 addresses is less than its established NECESSARY SPACE for the following 9 months.

In either case, IANA shall make a single IPv6 allocation, sufficient to satisfy the established NECESSARY SPACE of the RIR for an 18 month period.

3.1 Calculation of AVAILABLE SPACE

The AVAILABLE SPACE of IPv6 addresses of a RIR shall be determined as follows:

AVAILABLE SPACE = CURRENTLY FREE ADDRESSES + RESERVATIONS EXPIRING DURING THE FOLLOWING 3 MONTHS - FRAGMENTED SPACE

FRAGMENTED SPACE is determined as the total amount of available blocks smaller than the RIR's minimum allocation size within the RIR's currently available stock.

3.2 Calculation of NECESSARY SPACE

If the applying Regional Internet Registry does not establish any special needs for the period concerned, NECESSARY SPACE shall be determined as follows:

NECESSARY SPACE = AVERAGE NUMBER OF ADDRESSES ALLOCATED MONTHLY DURING THE PAST 6 MONTHS * LENGTH OF PERIOD IN MONTHS

If the applying RIR anticipates that due to certain special needs the rate of allocation for the period concerned will be different from the previous 6 months, it may determine its NECESSARY SPACE as follows:

Calculate NECESSARY SPACE as its total needs for that period according to its projection and based on the special facts that justify these needs.

Submit a clear and detailed justification of the above mentioned projection (Item A).

If the justification is based on the allocation tendency prepared by the Regional Internet Registry, data explaining said tendency must be enclosed.

If the justification is based on the application of one or more of the Regional Internet Registry's new allocation policies, an impact analysis of the new policy/policies must be enclosed.

If the justification is based on external factors such as new infrastructure, new services within the region, technological advances or legal issues, the corresponding analysis must be enclosed together with references to information sources that will allow verification of the data.

If IANA does not have elements that clearly question the Regional Internet Registry's projection, the special needs projected for the following 18 months, indicated in Item A above, shall be considered valid.

4. Announcement of IANA Allocations

The IANA, the NRO, and the RIRs will make announcements and update their respective web sites regarding an allocation made by the IANA to an RIR. ICANN and the NRO will establish administrative procedures to manage this process.

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."