From:                  IAB
For Response to:       ITU IPv6 Group
Response requested by: 2011/3/10
In response to:        Liaison LS 4 - E from the IPv6 Group
Title:                 CIRs and address allocation
Submission date:       2011/2/24
Contact:               Patrik Faltstrom, paf@cisco.com


The IAB thanks the ITU IPv6 working group for the opportunity to respond
to Liaison LS 4 - E "IPv4 Issues" and the associated Contribution TD-14, 
originating from Saudi Arabia entitled "The effects of IPv6 rollout delays 
on public policy regarding IPv4".  The IAB is chartered to provide the 
Internet Community guidance and oversight of the Internet Architecture. 
As such we have limited our responses to areas in which we believe there 
are architectural issues in play.

We recognize that there is a tension between efficiency of allocation and
efficiency of routing table entries.  This is a matter of ongoing
discussion and refinement of operational practices surrounding the
Internet Protocol. We bring to your attention RFC-2050 [1], upon which
Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) have based their initial policies,
as well as "A Fine Balance" [2], which was contributed to CG-2, in which
routing fragmentation is discussed.  The RIRs play a key role in managing
this balance.  

We remain convinced that the best way to address the shortage of IPv4 is
for the industry to move to IPv6.  Earlier lagging of IPv6 adoption can
be attributed to an ample supply of IPv4 addresses and little economic
incentive to be an early adopter of IPv6.  We note that since the creation 
of TD-14, the number of BGP announcements for IPv6 has approximately doubled 
from 2,500 to close to 4,500, indicating that service providers are 
building out their infrastructure [3].  In addition, the IETF continues
to work on co-existence technologies, such as 6rd, which was recently 
standardized in RFC 5969 [4].  Several IETF working groups, such as
BEHAVE and V6OPS, continue to consider transition approaches and best 
practices for IPv6 operations

The IAB and IETF continue to examine new approaches to evolve the Internet
Architecture.  We have examined the externalities that cause routing 
table growth[5].  Exploration in this area continues in the IETF and IRTF, 
including IDR, SIDR, GROW, and LISP working groups and the Routing
Research Group (RRG).

TD-14 discusses responsibilities of government to "assure stability,
sustainability, and security of the Internet."  We welcome dialog with
policy makers so as to understand their policy objectives relating to
sustained growth of the Internet, so that we can explore the technical
means to achieve those objectives.  We also believe that a meaningful
discussion should include the RIRs. The RIR communities, through the 
established open policy development processes, provide direction for the 
allocation of the internet number resources. For instance, issues with
transfer of allocations mentioned in the Contribution, have been 
addressed by the development of address transfer policies. The IAB/IETF 
recognize the RIRs in their role of developing operational policies for 
allocation that will support the continued stability, sustainability 
and security of the Internet. Given the operational framework for Internet 
number resource allocation, we strongly encourage discussions within the 
respective RIR policy development venues.




References:

[1] http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2050.txt

[2] http://www.isoc.org/pubpolpillar/docs/address-allocation_200906.pdf

[3] http://cidr-report.org

[4] http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5969.txt

[5] http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4984.txt