ARIN IP6 policy for those with legacy IP4 Space

Thu Apr 8 15:36:22 UTC 2010

> 
> 
> On Apr 8, 2010, at 8:51 AM, Joe Greco wrote:
> 
> >> On Apr 7, 2010, at 12:09 PM, John Palmer (NANOG Acct) wrote:
> >> 
> >>> Was looking at the ARIN IP6 policy and cannot find any reference to those who have
> >>> IP4 legacy space.
> >>> 
> >>> Isn't there an automatic allocation for those of us who have legacy IP space. If not, is ARIN
> >>> saying we have to pay them a fee to use IP6?  Isn't this a disincentive for us to move up to IP6?
> >>> 
> >>> Those with legacy IP4 space should have the equivalent IP6 space under the same terms. Or
> >>> am I missing something?
> >> 
> >> If you don't have a contract with ARIN, why should ARIN provide you with anything?
> > 
> > Because a legacy holder doesn't care about ARIN; a legacy holder has
> > usable space that cannot be reclaimed by ARIN and who is not paying
> > anything to ARIN.  The point here is that this situation does not
> > encourage adoption of IPv6, where suddenly there'd be an annual fee
> > and a contract for the space.  "ARIN" is incidental, simply the RIR
> > responsible in this case.
> 
> Umm, ARIN should provide a legacy holder with IPv6 space because the 
> legacy holder doesn't care about ARIN?

No.  Legacy holders have little incentive to implement IPv6 because they
have their v4 resources; this is a partial impediment to forward progress
in the implementation of v6.  If the Internet community really wanted to
motivate transition to v6, it would make reasonable sense to allocate
space to all interested v4 stakeholders at rates and preferably on terms
similar to what those stakeholders currently have.  This is independent
of any particular RIR; the only reason ARIN might be involved is that
ARIN is currently vaguely responsible for those legacy delegations, and
is therefore the logically responsible entity for such a policy.  ICANN
could make the decision for all I care.

> Legacy holders have been holding parts (possibly more than they would 
> be able to justify from an RIR) of a finite global shared resource 
> without sharing in the costs associated, and it's unfair to _them_ 
> that they're not _entitled_ to do the same in the IPv6 space?

When ARIN's costs are largely legal costs to go "enforcing" v4 policy
and a bureaucracy to go through all the policy and paperwork?  The
finiteness of the resource is irrelevant; it does not cost ARIN any
more or less to do its task in the v4 arena.  There is a cost to the
global Internet for v4 depletion, yes, but ARIN is not paying any of
us for forwarding table entries or forced use of NAT due to lack of
space, so to imply that ARIN's expenses are in any way related to the
finiteness of the resource is a laughable argument (you're 8 days 
late).

It would be better to dismantle the current ARIN v6 framework and do
a separate v6 RIR.  In v6, there's an extremely limited need to go
battling things in court, one could reduce expenses simply by giving
the benefit of the doubt and avoiding stuff like Kremen entirely.  In
the old days, nearly anyone could request -and receive- a Class C or
even Class B with very little more than some handwaving.  The main
reason to tighten that up was depletion; with IPv6, it isn't clear
that the allocation function needs to be any more complex than what
used to exist, especially for organizations already holding v4 
resources.

So, my challenges to you:

1) Justify why we need a heavy bureaucracy such as ARIN for IPv6
   numbering resources, 

2) Tell me why something like the old pre-depletion pre-ARIN model
   of InterNIC and just handing out prefixes with substantially less
   paper-pushing wouldn't result in a cheaper-to-run RIR.

> Yep, makes perfect sense to me.  
> 
> If the "rest of the world" moving to IPv6 isn't enough 
> encouragement for you, then bleh. 

So far, the rest of the world ISN'T moving to IPv6.  A small 
percentage is, and it's almost entirely dual-stack anyways.

> I'm only interested in encouraging my employer and my providers. 
> If you have no need to reach IPv6-only content or eyeballs, and 
> you don't care about NAT or geolocation issues with centralized 
> NAT or.... then sure, you have no encouragement or need to adopt 
> IPv6.  If you do need to reach IPv6-only content or eyeballs, 
> then that is your encouragement to play in the same playing 
> field as everyone else in your RIR-area.

IPv6-only content won't be meaningful for years yet, and IPv6-only
eyeballs will necessarily be given ways to reach v4 for many years
to come.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.