Odd.
I didn't get Okutani-san's response. Apologies if I'm missing some
context.
- RIRs should maintain the current address distribution
criteria until the IANA Exhaustion Date.
What is the rationale for this clause?
The idea is to ensure LIRs can receive IPv4 address space they
need (based on justifications) until the last minute with minimum
confusion.
Since allocation policies are defined by public policy processes, any
changes to those policies would be vetted by the public so concerns
about creating confusion seem a bit overblown.
On the other hand, disallowing changes in policy means you remove the
ability of RIRs to adapt to the changing conditions within their
regions. Not only are you turning on cruise control, you're removing
the steering wheel and brake pedal.
I would think a more rational approach would be for each RIR to
encourage IPv4 conservation using whatever policies make sense in
their region.
That could be one approach, and this is the part we intend to
discuss as regional policies after IED (presented as informational
in APNIC24).
So, when the RIRs have received the last /8 from the IANA pool, only
then would they be able to change allocation policies? At that
point, it isn't clear to me what advantage changing allocation
policies would have -- there would presumably be very little free
pool left for the policies to apply to.
- What advantages are there to distributing the last remaining /
8 blocks equally to the RIRs?
Encouraging investment in developing countries by large ISPs in
developed countries?
:-) I understand your point, but I imagine a single /8 won't
attract too many investors. It probably won't last for more than
few months to meet their needs.
How much is a few months of new customers worth?
I know quite a number of people are concerned about this point, so
I'd be interested to hear more details on what people see as an
issue.
Given that we are talking about a time when 'free' IPv4 addresses
will be at their most scarce, and given the current lack of IPv6
deployment, we have to accept that this is *will* happen. It would
be irresponsible to think otherwise.
Agreed.
More to the point, discussions about equitable distribution are
likely missing the point. The reality is there is non-equitable
consumption. Here at AfriNIC, there are projections that the
_current_ IPv4 reserves held by AfriNIC will last until 2014. Adding
another /8 to that will simply lengthen the time AfriNIC will have
IPv4 addresses when ARIN, RIPE-NCC, and APNIC likely will not. This
may be a good thing (in theory giving ISPs in developing countries
more time to swap out hardware that can't support IPv6), however I
jokingly mentioned that if you really want equitable distribution of
the last of the free pool, it is likely AfriNIC will have to donate
address space to the other RIRs at some point. Pragmatically
speaking, these "donations" may be the result of desperate folks with
money looking for address space anywhere they can get it. This might
be another demonstration of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Regards,
-drc