Hello AP-WG,

While following IPv6-related discussions over the past few years [Such as: https://mailman.ripe.net/archives/list/address-policy-wg@ripe.net/message/FBC7D6O6DWJ65IP54MVQZKNIH26ZQFHX], I have found myself wondering whether the community still shares a common understanding of what constitutes an “End Site” in practice for IPv6 deployments. What makes something a separate end-site?

Core problem statement

Many aspects of the IPv6 assignment policy and documentation of assignments in the RIPE Database are based on assignments made to "End Sites”.

The definition exists but is anchored to subscriber-location, and it's not obvious if it covers operationally or topologically distinct deployments, which is what I'd value the community's view on.

That ambiguity may have been tolerable when most deployments followed relatively common patterns, but the wider range of deployment models in use today makes the lack of precision more noticeable.

Operational and deployment models have evolved considerably since the original definition was introduced.

I am interested in understanding whether the community believes the current interpretation remains clear and consistently understood.

Some areas where differing interpretations may exist include:

• What qualifies a deployment as a distinct end-site? Physical location only, or also operational/topological separation?
• Whether an End Site is primarily a legal entity, an organization, a network, a physical location, a single end-user, or an operational deployment?
• How the concept applies to distributed enterprise networks spanning multiple locations?

I would be interested to hear views, examples, and operational experiences from others.