Dear Colleagues, At RIPE 44, earlier this year, the LIR WG formed a Task Force to investigate possible changes to the current policy for assigning Provider Independent (PI) IPv4 address space. <http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail-archives/lir-wg/2003/msg00108.html> The Task Force's discussion is summarised below. The discussion started with a provocative statement that the concept of PI address space is broken. It was also noted that the current policy requires assignment of space that may not be globally routeable as the prefix length will be filtered. This space may be suitable for networks that do not need to be globally routed but can be inconvenient for others. There was support for the continued availability of PI address space to End Users - and a recognition that IXPs and root DNS servers do require PI address space. Nonetheless, there were worries that liberalising the policy by having a minimum prefix length for PI assignments could result in an increase in the number of requests for PI address space and a consequent increase in the size of the IPv4 DFZ. One particular concern was that those not qualifying for a /24 of PA may would request a /24 of PI, instead. Finally, it was noted that if the policy for assigning PI address space is changed the usage hurdle for new LIRs to receive a first allocation should be reviewed, too. No consensus for a recommendation to change the existing policy was reached. Regards, -- leo vegoda RIPE NCC Registration Services