And so it ends...

Thu Feb 3 20:42:06 UTC 2011

On Feb 3, 2011, at 8:59 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:
> That remains to be seen. If they give up their space, it is unclear that they have any right to transfer it to another
> organization rather than return it to the successor registry. There is no precedent established showing that
> this is allowed.

Right.  Like Compaq returned 16/8 when they acquired Digital (and HP returned 16/8 when they acquired Compaq). 

> That remains to be seen. IANA has declared them the successor registries

No.  First, "IANA" does not exist.  The term "IANA" now refers to a series of functions currently performed under contract from the US Dept. of Commerce, NTIA by ICANN.  As such it can't declare anything.

Second, neither ICANN nor the USG has (to my knowledge) declared the RIRs to be "successor registries" (whatever they are).  The IPv4 registry continues to exist and will undoubtedly be maintained as it always has been.  The only real difference is that there aren't any more IPv4 /8s tagged with "UNALLOCATED".

> The other thing to consider is that the RIR doesn't really need to "reclaim" the block, per se. They can simply stop providing uniqueness to the organizations that don't have a contract with them and issue those numbers to some other organization that has a contract. The other organization would know that their uniqueness is limited to those cooperating in the registry system.
> 
> Does an organization that has no contract with an RIR have a right to expect that RIR to continue to provide them a unique registration?

The RIRs are self-defined geographical monopolies that provide a set of public infrastructure services to the Internet community at large.  It's an interesting question whether that service is limited to only those folks who pay -- my guess if the RIRs took this stance, they'd be looking down the barrel of numerous governmental anti-monopoly/anti-cartel agencies.

However, pragmatically speaking, the folks who matter in any of this are the ISPs.  The RIRs exist primarily as a means by which ISPs can avoid doing a myriad set of bilateral agreements as to who "owns" what address space to ensure uniqueness.  If the RIRs reduce their value by no longer providing that service in an effective way (e.g., by doing what you suggest), I suspect the ISPs would find other entities to provide global uniqueness services.

Regards,
-drc