On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:53 PM, Tore Anderson <tore@fud.no> wrote:
I support the idea of allowing inter-region transfers in general as long as the marginal cost of doing so is reasonably low, so I feel a bit bad about this, but: I do *not* support this proposal.
The reason for this is that inter-region transfers are being used as an argument against proposal 2013-03, see:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/address-policy-wg/2013-March/007757.h...
My view is that if the cost of allowing for inter-region transfers (specifically in a way that is compatible with ARIN's policy) is to uphold the need bureaucracy and operational overhead relating to assignments for all RIPE region LIRs, then the marginal cost is not reasonably low, but unacceptably high. If it's an either/or situation between 2012-02 and 2013-03, I'm firmly in the 2013-03 camp. I elaborate on why here:
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/address-policy-wg/2013-March/007764.h...
One point I think is worth mentioning in this thread: you referenced http://www.menog.org/presentations/menog-12/127-IPv4_Transfers-RIPE_NCC_Upda... the fact that there have been only 17 transactions to date, as an argument that 2012-02 is less of a priority than 2012-13. One thing that really stuck out to me from that presentation was the fact that there was "Currently 6,144 IPs offered vs 1,714,176 requested" on the RIPE listing service. I have also heard that many organizations seeking to obtain addresses via transfer in the RIPE region are having trouble doing so, because of the scarcity of supply. This has undoubtedly reduced the volume of transactions. I have also heard that it is resulting in organizations setting for much less space than they'd like due to the high price (relative to the prevailing market price in the ARIN and APNIC regions). Given that, I do think it is important to pass a compatible inter-RIR transfer policy as soon as feasible, to allow organizations in the RIPE region to get access to resources from other regions.
This issue might be resolved by having 2012-02 add some text that upholds the need principle for transfers coming in from regions that demand it (read: ARIN), or for the recipient LIRs of such transfers overall. I have no suggestion on exactly how this text could look like,
I'm afraid. Perhaps the key would be to have RIPE continue doing needs assessment on transfers, while allowing LIRs to reassign space to customers without any particular requirements. I'm not sure if RIPE would still have to collect some sort of usage information on reassigned space in the event an LIR came back for another block via transfer, but I suspect that'd be a much lower burden than the current needs-assessment-on-everything situation.
I suspect the proposer would have to discuss it with ARIN staff in order to get confirmation that any proposed text does indeed satisfy their definition of «needs-based general number resource policies».
Yes, there will definitely need to be some coordination there. -Scott