_______________________________________________________________________ prop-100-v001: National IP Address Plan - Allocation of country-wide IP address blocks _______________________________________________________________________ Author: Rakesh Mohan Agarwal Version: 1 Date: 2 August 2011 1. Introduction --------------- Right now IPv6 addresses are being allocated by APNIC to individual telecom Service Providers/internet service providers and other organisations just like allocation of IPv4 addresses in which telecom Service Providers/internet service providers and other organisations specially in India are not having contiguous IP address blocks. This causes inefficiencies in routing table as well as creating problems to Indian law enforcement agencies in tracing out the IP address of the end users. So taking cue from this problem Government of India (Department of Telecommunications) set up a committee for formulation of the National IPv6 address policy. This committee is a 15 members body having national and international members from all stakeholders. In the 2nd meeting of the committee held on 18th July 2011 in New Delhi members were of the opinion that India as a whole should ask for a bigger block of IPv6 address from APNIC. However the exact requirement of this block will be worked out on the basis of IPv6 address allocated to various organisations such as telecom Service Providers/internet service providers and other organisations and new entrants like other central Government departments, State Government departments, public sector units, universalities, colleges, hospitals and other sectors in the country and their future requirement of IP addresses for next 20 years at least (as Ipv6 addresses are not going to be exhausted in these years). As right now APNIC policy does not allow address block to be allocated country wise so through this paper, we are seeking a change in the policy for allocation of IPv6 address country wise rather than individual organisations wise. 2. Summary of current problem ----------------------------- Right now IP addresses are being allocated to the individual organizations and for their future requirements only IP address block for 1 year (approx) is being kept reserved, this is as per prevailing practices of allocation of IPv4 addresses. so again 1. Same problem of fragmented Addresses will be there as is in case of IPv4 Addresses, if contiguous addresses are not allocated to organisations and in turn to geographical locations. 2. In the current scenario it is very difficult for law enforcing agencies to identify miscreants timely. 3. Situation in other RIRs -------------------------- Countries in other RIRs would be having same problems. 4. Details of the proposal -------------------------- While in case of IPv6 Addresses there is huge availability of IP addresses so in India we want to have one big block of IPv6 Addresses say e.g./17 wanted to be reserved for us and allocated to Indian NIR when it becomes operational, this Address space will take care of requirement of all TSPs/ISPs industries and other organizations. The requirement of this block will be worked out on the basis of IPv6 address allocated to various organisations such as telecom Service Providers/internet service providers and other organisations and new entrants like other central Government departments, State Government departments, public sector units, universalities, colleges, hospitals and other sectors in the country and their future requirement of IP addresses for next 20 years at least (as Ipv6 addresses are not going to be exhausted in these years). 5. Advantages and disadvantages of the proposal ------------------------------------------------ Advantages: 1.In addition to effective and efficient routing table all economies will be in a position to plan their IP address requirement on long term basis and accordingly they can reflect their requirement and get the suitable address block allocated either to their NIRs or get their block reserved in the APNIC. This would avoid discrepancies in address allocation country wise as happened in the case of IPv4 address allocation where most of the developing geographies could not get their due share, as in the case of India, where we are having only 18.5 million IPv4 addresses for population of 1.2 billion and more than 360 million data users. 2. Workload of RIRs would come down drastically and they will be able to concentrate on more productive job compared to this routine job. Disadvantages: No disadvantage appears to be there right now. 6. Effect on APNIC Members -------------------------- All APNIC members will get advantage out of the bigger address block allocated to them. 7. Effect on NIRs ----------------- NIRs can allocate IP addresses to individual member in its geographical area as per their actual/focused plans.