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Global Policy Proposal for the Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries – Background Report | (Proposal for handling recovered IPv4 address space) | This proposal has been abandoned

12 May 2009

Updated 16 October 2010
3 June 2010
4 December 2009
4 September 2009
11 June 2009



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 23 April 2009, the Board resolved to request tracking of the development of a Global Policy Proposal for the Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries, under discussion in the addressing community. 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 sixth and final issue of the tracking of this policy. It will not be tracked hereafter, since the NRO EC recently deemed the proposal abandoned.

Status Overview

The approach is that IANA will serve as repository for IPv4 blocks returned by the RIRs and then allocate them to the RIRs according to need. Two phases are foreseen:

  1. Initially, IANA just collects recovered IPv4 space from the RIRs, no smaller than /24 blocks (256 addresses).

  2. From the moment that the IANA free pool is exhausted (i.e. when the last five  /8 blocks have been allocated according to an already ratified global policy), IANA also handles requests from RIRs (maximum of two requests per RIR per year) for IPv4 address space and allocates according to need and availability. The minimum allocation to an RIR is a /24 and the maximum allocation is one tenth of IANA's available IPv4 address space. No allocation will take place in case that the above maximum allocation is less than a /24. In this phase, IANA will also continue to receive any recently recovered space from the RIRs.

Originally, a first global policy proposal draft for handling of recovered IPv4 address space was introduced in the APNIC region, rapidly followed by slightly modified proposals as follows:

  • A version (prop-069-v001) "Global policy proposal for the allocation of IPv4 blocks to Regional Internet Registries", introduced on the APNIC policy list on 23 Jan 2009
  • A modified version (prop-069-v002), introduced on the APNIC policy list on 3 February 2009 and presented at the APNIC 27 meeting on 26 February 2009, where consensus was reached after some clarifications
  • A version (prop-069-v003) clarified as agreed at APNIC 27 and adopted in APNIC on 22 May 2009.

The following relates to the most current version of the above proposals, hereinafter called version A, which has been introduced on the policy mailing lists and discussed at meetings in all other RIRs.

On 5 March 2009, the ASO AC recognized the proposal as fulfilling the formal requirements as a candidate for a Global Policy.

The proposal has also passed final call in AfriNIC and has been adopted in LACNIC and RIPE. However, during the discussions in the ARIN region a modified text was proposed which, after further modifications to a new version, hereinafter called version B, has passed final call and been adopted in ARIN. RIPE awaited the outcome in ARIN before acting further on the proposal, which is now adopted in version A. A central issue in the current situation is whether and how the different versions can be reconciled to a single global policy.

Related materials: The original proposal was modified during the ARIN Policy Development Process following statements that the policy should continue the needs based allocation requirement. The following links provide background:

ARIN General Counsel Review: http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/2009-March/013146.html

APNIC post exhaustion transfer requirements: http://www.apnic.net/policy/transfer-policy#recipient

Once the proposal has been adopted in all RIRs, i.e. ARIN, AfriNIC, LACNIC, RIPE and APNIC, and provided the version issue has been resolved, the proposal will be handled by the NRO EC and the ASO AC according to their procedures before being submitted to the ICANN Board for ratification.

In October 2010, the Chair of the NRO EC stated that the NRO EC deems the proposal abandoned, in view of the version differences. It is noted that other proposals, now in the drafting stage, may advance to fulfill a similar function to that intended with the abandoned proposal.

The table below outlines the steps taken within each RIR for the current proposal. Hyperlinks are included for easy access.

Status of current proposal

RIR

AfriNIC

APNIC

ARIN

LACNIC

RIPE

Proposal Introduced

5 Mar 2009 
list message
9 Mar 2009
Afpol-v4gb200903
version A



23 Jan 2009
prop-069-v001 (prel. 1)
3 Feb 2009 prop-069-v002 (prel. 2)
6 Mar 2009
prop-069-v003
version A




13 Jan 2009
list message
30 Jan 2009
list message
9 Mar 2009 list message version A
23 Mar 2009 Policy prop 2009-3 (mod.) mod 14 Sept
mod 24 Nov
version B






2 Feb 2009
LAC-2009-01
28 Apr 2009 LAC-2009-01 v2
version A


19 Feb 2009
prop 2009-01
version A

Discussion list

Resource Policy Disc. List

SIG-Policy

Public Policy Mailing List

Politicas – Policy Mailing List

Address Policy WG

Public Forum

 AfriNIC 10
10-21 May 2009
(consensus)

APNIC 27  23 -27 Feb 2009
- Slides
(consensus)

ARIN XXIII
26 - 29 April 2009
- Handout, p8

LACNIC XII
25 - 29 May 2009
- Slides
(consensus)


RIPE 58
4 - 8 May 2009
- Slides

Final Call for Comments

23 May - 6 Jun 2009

6 Mar - 1 May 2009

28 Oct - 13 Nov 2009

19 June - 3 Aug 2009

 

Next Public Forum

AfriNIC 12 23 May - 4 June 2010

APNIC 30 23  - 27 Aug 2010

ARIN XXVI 6 - 8 Oct 2010

LACNIC XIII 16 - 21 May 2010

RIPE 61 15 - 19 Oct 2010

Adoption

 

Endorsed by APNIC EC 22 May 2009

Adopted by ARIN Board of Trustees 18 Dec 2009

Ratified by LACNIC Board 13 Oct 2010

Accepted by the RIPE community 2 Aug 2010

Link to document

AFPUB-2009-v4-002version A

Proposal-069-v003
version A

Policy prop 2009-3
version B

LAC-2009-01v2 (EN) version A
LAC-2009-01v2 (SP)
LAC-2009-01v2 (PT)

RIPE Policy Proposal 2009-01
Policy RIPE-497
version A

Link to Policy Development Process

Policy Development Process

Policy Development Process

Policy Development Process

Policy Development Process

Policy Development Process

Status

final call concluded
version A

adopted
version A

adopted
version B

adopted
version A

adopted version A