Now, however, that ARIN is discussing proposals such as 2002-5, 2002-6 and
2002-7 (with 2002-5 & 2002-6 most likely being passed within few months)
ARIN maybe put in position of assigning smaller then /20 blocks and that
is why I suggested on ARIN ppml mailing list that current micro-allocation
wording about assiging small blocks from specifically designated larger
blocks be made a separate policy that would apply to all small allocations &
asignments being made directly by ARIN. If you think its a good idea to
make this a policy, please do send your feedback to ARIN or bring it up
on ppml mailing list and then ARIN can work on this futher to make it a
policy.
Proposal 2002-7 is exactly what is needed in my opinion. I wish I'd seen
it before I posted here earlier, since it basically identifies every
problem I mentioned.
I suspect that a suitable combination of all of these proposals would have
a good chance of getting through.
Regards
Marshall Eubanks
Now, however, that ARIN is discussing proposals such as 2002-5, 2002-6 and
2002-7 (with 2002-5 & 2002-6 most likely being passed within few months)
ARIN maybe put in position of assigning smaller then /20 blocks and that
is why I suggested on ARIN ppml mailing list that current micro-allocation
wording about assiging small blocks from specifically designated larger
blocks be made a separate policy that would apply to all small allocations &
asignments being made directly by ARIN. If you think its a good idea to
make this a policy, please do send your feedback to ARIN or bring it up
on ppml mailing list and then ARIN can work on this futher to make it a
policy.
Proposal 2002-7 is exactly what is needed in my opinion. I wish I'd seen
it before I posted here earlier, since it basically identifies every
problem I mentioned.
I don't think even combined proposal would do it, best you can get is
that everybody who supported at least one of the proposals would support the
combined one and from last ARIN meeting number of large ISPs do not want
any of these as they'd like to have more control over the customer so only
50% actually said there were interested in any proposal that reduced
assignment size.
How or why this could pass is influenced by ARIN process, only proposals
that have concensus (not easily defined word, but probably around 3/4 of
known participants or interested parties support would go to consenses) are
passed by ARIN AC. However what is happening is that with proposals where
there is no clear consensus, ARIN will be influenced too much by what is
being represented at ARIN public meeting as opposed to discussion at
mailing list. In my opinion this has to do with ability of ARIN to
estimate support of proposals from public meeting by simple "show of
hands" where as no such thing exist at mailing list. But ARIN public
meeting is very poor representation of proposals that have more interest
in smaller ISP community - based on my calculation only around 4% of
participants of last ARIN meeting were from small ISPs, where are ARIN's
own numbers show that > 80% of ARIN members are actually small ISPs.
So while I think at large majority of interested parties would be in
support of one of the proposals that would decrease ARIN's minimum
allocation/assignment size, this would not go far enough in ARINs's
policy process because there is not enough support for this exist among
large ISPs that are the ones sending participants to public meetings and
having larger influence on ARIN's policy decision. In my opinion there are
several ways to deal with this situation:
1. Work on having more smaller ISPs and interested parties come to ARIN
public meetings. One positive approach it to held more meetings with
NANOG but this is probably not quite enough.
2. Bring more equality into public policy decision process (i.e.
between mailing list and public meeting). In my view this can be
accomplished by allowing kind of show-hands on the ARIN mailing lists
by doing web survey (possibly of only members of the maling list - I
know many have opinion or stake in the process but only few are
actually actively participating, same is true on public meeting but
at least there majority votes and their vote is "counted").
3. Change proposals to bring more support from large ISPs. (I do currently
have an idea on that is kind of compromise between existing proposals
and what large ISPs want as far as retaining control. The idea is a
bit controversial and full of its own problems and I personally would
greatly prefer current proposals but it would solve some problems
and likely have better support from some large isps, so I will check
by private emails with some other people who run ISPs and if I got
some good response, I'll bring it up on ppml for everybody to think
about).
But as far as current situation, if you're interested in the proposal
to bring ARIN's minimum allocation or assignment down as is done with
other RIRs and you have have opinion or stake in the process (i.e.
you're small isp or other company who would like to get ips directly from
ARIN as opossed to relying on your upstream and in case of their ch11
wondering what you'd do...) then please do express your opinion at ARIN
public policy mailing list - ppml@arin.net. See http://www.arin.net/mailing_lists/index.html#ppml for more information.
P.S. If you're interested in survey approach, please send me private email.
I was told this would not work but I do not agree with that and if there
is enough interest we can try to at least convince ARIN to do a test survey
for mailing list participants.