[apnic-talk] Community Statement to ITU
Please find the statement presented as the Community's position to the ITU at the "Community Consultation - IPv6 and ITU" session at APRICOT10 today.
Feel free to distribute more widely.
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James Spenceley
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Introduction
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IP address management is fundamental to ongoing Internet stability. Over the past decade the Internet has become fundamental to the world’s economy. The Internet is truly global. What happens in one part of the world affects the rest of the world. So changes in IP address management could affect billions of devices globally, irrespective of the country where they are located.
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The importance of an open environment
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The Internet has become what it is today because of the open, transparent, bottom-up process used to develop the Internet’s protocols and management policies. Everyone is encouraged to participate.
RIR decision making has no barriers to participation. Anyone, including government, can have their say. This is made transparent by public archives of the decision making process, including mailing lists, video, and meeting transcripts.
Risks of introducing a parallel address management system
The operational stability, security, and efficiency of the Internet relies on a single consistent address management framework. The introduction of "competing" address management systems is not desired by network operators, and carries the strong risk of fragmenting address management policies, of fragmenting the Internet itself, and of compromising the Internet’s security and stability.
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Equitable Distribution
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We note the equitable distribution of addresses is already in place in the current IPv6 management system and addresses are being deployed actively and effectively throughout the world at this time. Each RIR already has the same sized block to distribute to networks within their region.
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Actions
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1. The proposal for a parallel address management system involves significant risks and therefore requires a clear problem statement, complete explanation of its details, and a thorough risk analysis of its consequence. The NAv6 paper satisfies none of these requirements. Therefore, the NAv6 proposal, the paper itself cannot be considered as a substantial basis for discussion at the ITU IPv6 Group's work.
2. Since concern about potential IPv6 exhaustion appears to be one of the fundamental concerns behind the ITU’s studies into IPv6, we suggest that the ITU conduct a study on this.