Per, On Jul 30, 2007, at 2:11 PM, Per Heldal wrote:
If we are to deviate from the principle of "documented need", I believe it is better to define a last pool of /8s (e.g. 15) that is to be split among the RIRs according to their consumption.
We (actually, Leo) did this exercise internally a while ago. It is a bit challenging to come up with a single answer as the outcome greatly depends on the starting conditions. That is, consumption is quite non-linear and if you choose a recent starting point you'll get a different answer than if you choose a historical starting point. This is further complicated by the fact that it is highly unlikely that current consumption patterns will remain constant over the lifetime of the IPv4 free pool. Of course, we can always close our eyes and pick numbers at semi-random...
I believe that if we approved this policy each RIR could discussed more conservative policies and hopefully the RIR pool will never run out (check the "slow landing" proposal at ARIN as an example).
Suggestions like the "soft landing" proposal in ARIN amount to little more than wishful thinking. Policy-changes may limit the number of smaller blocks and thus affect routing-table-growth. The volume of address-consumption OTOH is tied to growth in the broadband-market on which changes to allocation policies have minimal effect -- unless you go as far as to introduce some form of rationing.
Um. "Soft Landing" is a form of rationing. It increases the requirements for obtaining space as the free pool diminishes, making it harder and harder to obtain new blocks from the registry. In theory, the end effect would be to encourage increased efficiency in the use of IPv4 address space, even amongst broadband providers. Rgds, -drc