_______________________________________________________________________ prop-091-v001: Limiting of final /8 policy to specific /9 _______________________________________________________________________ Author: David Woodgate Version: 1 Date: 20 January 2011 1. Introduction ---------------- This is a proposal to modify the policies for distribution of the "final /8" to only apply to a specific /9 block of the final /8, on the basis that the current policies would unnecessarily prevent the use of over 8 million IPv4 addresses that otherwise should be used to enable user connections. 2. Summary of the current problem ---------------------------------- The original final /8 policy proposal assumed that small amounts of IPv4 addressing would still be needed for some years into the future to successfully operate an Internet business, even with IPv6 use growing rapidly in the industry. Therefore, the aim of the final /8 policy was to ensure that new ISPs and other businesses would continue to have access to IPv4 addresses to initiate their services. The current final /8 policy [1] allows for one minimum allocation per APNIC account holder from the entire final APNIC /8. This results in the following potential numbers of allocations: No. of /22s available from /8: 16,536 No. of /22s available from /8 (reserved /16 removed): 16,320 This is a large number of potential allocations when compared with APNIC's current numbers of account holders and recent annual growth: No. of APNIC account holders (Aug 2010) [2]: 3,132 APNIC acount holder growth per annum [3]: around 320 If the APNIC account holder growth rate were to increase up to 480 new account holders per year (a 150% increase on the current growth rate), it would take over 27 years to make every one of the possible 16,320 allocations from the final /8 (minus the reserved /16). It is reasonable to expect that within the next 10 years IPv6 will be thoroughly deployed throughout the Internet as the preferred protocol and that IPv4 address allocation will no longer be sought. Looking at a 10-year forecast of annual account holder growth of 480, only a /9 would be consumed within this timeframe, leaving another /9 never used under current final /8 policy. This would seem to be an undesirable situation for the APNIC community, as this unused space could be used to provide IPv4 Internet connections to millions of users (whether that be prior to or as part of dual-stack IPv6 deployments). The release of these addresses would not be expected to make a significant change to the overall IPv4 exhaustion timeframes, but it would allow the addresses to be used for their designed purpose of enabling user connections. If the pool reserved for the final /8 allocation policies were to be reduced to a /9, it would result in the following potential numbers of allocations: No. of /22s available from /9: 8,192 No. of /22s available from /9 (reserved /16 removed): 8,128 3. Situation in other RIRs --------------------------- AfriNIC: AfriNIC do not have a confirmed final /8 policy yet, but are considering the "IPv4 Soft Landing Proposal". If this proposal is adopted, AfriNIC would continue to allocate from their final /8, but with greater limitations on allocations particularly for their final /11: http://www.afrinic.net/docs/policies/AFPUB-2010-v4-005.htm ARIN: Section 4.10, "Dedicated IPv4 block to facilitate IPv6 Deployment", of the ARIN Number Resource Policy Manual, specifies that ARIN will reserve a /10 from their final /8 to facilitate IPv6 deployment. https://www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#four10 LACNIC: Section 11, "Policies Relating to the Exhaustion of IPv4 Address Space", of the LACNIC Policy Manual specifies that LACNIC will restrict allocations for their final /12: http://www.lacnic.net/en/politicas/manual11.html RIPE: Proposal 2010-02, "Allocations from the last /8", which appears to be based on APNIC's current final /8 policy is currently "Awaiting Decisions from WG Chairs". http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2010-02.html It therefore appears that most of the RIRs have policies or are considering proposals that will reserve blocks that would be smaller than the /9 being considered by this proposal. Only RIPE is considering a proposal that would duplicate APNIC's current policy for the entire final /8. 4. Details ----------- It is proposed that the policy, "Distribution of the final /8 worth of space in the unallocated APNIC IPv4 address pool" be adjusted as follows: 4.1 The policies be applied to a specific contiguous /8 block received from IANA. 4.2 The specific block from IANA be divided into two /9 blocks. 4.3 One of the two /9 blocks will have the following policies applied to it: - The policy for allocations to LIRs currently described in section 9.10.1, "Allocations to LIRs" - The policy for reserving a /16 for future use, currently described in section 9.10.2, "Allocations for future uses" 4.4 The other /9 block will be allocated according to current IPv4 allocation policies, and in particular the policies described by: - 9.3 Criteria for initial allocation - 9.4 Criteria for subsequent allocations 5. Pros/Cons ------------- Advantages: - Adoption of this proposal would provide over 8 million additional IPv4 addresses for use by the APNIC community for user connections Disadvantages: - If there were an unforeseen explosion of APNIC account holders in the the near future, there would be a slight risk that new Internet businesses might not be able to obtain IPv4 addresses for their business before IPv6 were generally deployed. However, historical data [2][3][4] indicates that this would seem a very unlikely scenario within a 10-year timeframe. 6. Effect on APNIC ------------------- Adoption of this proposal would require APNIC to manage the allocation of an additional /9 prior to moving to the "exhaustion phase" of allocations. This would be expected to add only a couple of months at most of allocations according to current practices, and this extra work would be within the standard scope of APNIC's purpose. 7. Effect on NIRs ------------------ There would be no significant impact on NIRs arising from this proposal other than the potential allocation of additional IPv4 address space to them by APNIC. 8. References -------------- [1] Section 9.10.1, "Allocations to LIRs", in "Policies for IPv4 address space management in the Asia Pacific region" http://www.apnic.net/policy/add-manage-policy#9.10.1 [2] Slide 12, "APNIC Service Levels", APNIC Services Area Report, APNIC 30 http://meetings.apnic.net/30/Services-Report-Sanjaya.pdf [3] Inferred from slide 2, "APNIC Service Levels", APNIC Services Area Report, APNIC 29, http://meetings.apnic.net/29/Services-Report.pdf and by comparison with the figures in reference [2] [4] APNIC Membership graph, page 3, APNIC Annual Report 2009 http://www.apnic.net/2009-APNIC-Annual-Report.pdf