For me these two phrases, DELEGATED-TO-LIR and ASSIGNED-TO-END-USER, hit the spot precisely!
excellent suggestion Guy!
Is it appropriate to request consideration of these terms as replacements for ASSIGNED and ALLOCATED?
Wouldn't it be a good idea to standardize the terminology with ARIN and others? In that case, the term LIR would be considered obscure and meaningless. Since all LIRs are service providers of some sort, either ISPs or an internal network service provider, I think that a standard terminology should try to use generic terms. That would mean either DELEGATED-TO-SVC-PROVIDER or DELEGATED-TO-NSP if you like acronyms (Network Service Provider). In any case, because the distinction between "allocated" and "assigned" has been unclear in the past and because there is a significant shift in terminology from "allocated" to "delegated" this change should be incorporated in an informational RFC. This document would help in clarifying that there is indeed a difference between the two states of an address block and would also help in promoting the use of this terminology amongst the community that deal with IP address delegations and assignments. DELEGATED-TO-NSP and ASSIGNED-TO-USER are two terms that would be clear worldwide. Michael Dillon Network Product Engineering Radianz