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Policy for IPv6 — Background Report

Updated 7 March 2006

Introduction

The development of Global Internet Number Resource Policies is the subject of an MoU between ASO/NRO and ICANN . There are also specific ICANN Board Procedures, adopted by the Board on 15 July 2005 at the ICANN meeting in Luxembourg, for handling global policy proposals in this context.

The above-mentioned Board procedures also state that the Board can request ICANN staff to undertake an "early awareness" tracking of proposals for global policies under development in the addressing community. At its meeting on 16 August 2005, the Board resolved to request such tracking of the development of a global policy proposal for allocation of IPv6 address space, already well advanced in the Regional Internet Registries, or RIRs. The status overview presented below is compiled in response to this request and will be timely updated as developments proceed, for information to ICANN entities and the wider community.

Status Overview

The table below indicates the current status within each RIR for the foreseen Global Policy for IPv6. Hyperlinks are included for easy access.

There were originally two version of the proposal of Allocation of IPv6 Address Space by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Policy to Regional Internet Registries

  • "First version" presented at APNIC 18 (issued in Sept 2004)

  • "Second version" elaborated after further discussion (issued in February 2005).

The current situation, since mid October 2005, is that all RIRs are treating the "second version", which has advanced in the RIRs' respective adoption processes, as indicated in the table below.

RIR AfriNIC APNIC ARIN LACNIC RIPE
Topic Introduced 1 Aug 2005 1 Sept 2004
(orig. 22 July 2003)
20 Sept 2004 2 Sept 2004 4 August 2004
Discussion list Policy WG Mailing List ( subscription) SIG-Policy Public Policy Mailing List Politicas -- LACNIC Policy Mailing List Address Policy WG
Public Forum AfriNIC 3, 12-14 December 2005
- Agenda (Second version)
- Slides (Second version)
APNIC 18, 31 Aug — 3 Sept 2004
- Slides
(First version)
APNIC 20
6 - 9 Sept. 2005
- Slides
(Second version)
ARIN XIV
19-22 Oct 2004
- Slides
(First version)
ARIN XV 17-21 April 2005
- Slides
(Second version)
LACNIC VII 26-28 Oct 2004
- Slides
(First version)
LACNIC VIII 27-30 June 2005
- Slides
(Second version)
RIPE 49 20-24 Sept 2004
- Slides (First version)
RIPE 50 1-6 May 2005
- Slides
(Second version)
RIPE 51 10-14 Oct 2005
- Agenda and slides (Second version)
Final Call for Comments 9 - 24 Feb 2006 17 Sept - 12 Nov 2004 (first version)
21 Sept - 16 Nov 2005
(second version)
16 May - 1 June 2005
10 Aug - 24 Sept 2005 28 Feb — 27 March 2006
Next Public Forum (N/A - this stage is passed for all)          
RIR Board Endorsement Foreseen for first half of March 2006 Endorsed by Executive Committee 19 Nov 2004
(first version)
25 Nov 2005
(second version)
Board of Trustees 16 June 2005 LACNIC Board ratification on 17 October 2005. WG chairs to judge consensus. No Board decision called for, according to RIPE PDP.
Link to document AfriNIC proposed policy Proposal-005-v005 Policy proposal 2004-8 - In English
- In Spanish
- In Portuguese
RIPE Draft Document (First Version)
Policy proposal 2005-09 (Second version)
Link to Policy Development Process Policy Development Process Policy Development Internet Resource Policy Evaluation
Process
Policy Development Process Policy Development Process
Status "Second version", final call closed, awaiting Board adoption. "Second version" adopted. "Second version" adopted. "Second version" adopted. "Second version" in final call for comments.
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."