On Oct 8, 2009, at 6:31 PM, Nigel Titley wrote:
Also of course, the argument that this policy does not comply with the "at need" practice currently followed by RIRs is a little shaky too. This policy only kicks in once the IANA pool is completely exhausted. All RIRs will be able to make justification for the tiny remaining dribbles of IPv4 space that this policy will generate. As noted several times today, this policy is not about usefully extending the life of IPv4. It is about showing that RIRs are able to act in a magnanimous and equitable fashion with the last remaining dregs of an irreplaceable resource.
If the RIR's are drawing from the IANA pool in relatively small amounts on intervals based on their actual documented need, the runout of the IANA free pool is quickly followed by runout of available space for new ISP/NIR/LIR allocations in all regions at roughly the same time globally (this excludes consideration of the "final /8's", which may or may not be available for such allocations depending on regional policy). All RIR's running out together at the about same time is certainly "equitable". Globally, we're presently going through 10 to 12 /8's each year. Under today's policies, if one assumes that a handful of /8's were to be reclaimed through focused efforts and returned to the IANA, we'd continue allocations for few months. Post-IANA runout, this global policy sets fixed allocation sizes which will likely be less than some regions need yet larger other regions needs for years to come. This effectively insures that a subset of economies need to deal with IPv4 address depletion first. "Magnanimous" applies to such a situation, but "equitable" is a matter of perspective. The altering of IPv4 depletion impact among economies is not necessarily a bad thing, and in fact, may indeed be the right choice for the best chances of global IPv6 deployment. While the discussion of this policy has recently focused on the mandatory/optional IANA return issue that ARIN introduced, the larger implications of departing from strictly need-based policy is likely the redirection of the IPv4 depletion impact to a subset of RIRs. /John