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Introduction

Global Internet Number Resource Policies are defined by the ASO MOU - between ICANN and the NRO - as "Internet number resource policies that have the agreement of all RIRs according to their policy development processes and ICANN, and require specific actions or outcomes on the part of IANA or any other external ICANN-related body in order to be implemented". Attachment A of this MOU describes the Development Process of Global Internet Number Resource Policies, including the adoption by every RIR of a global policy to be forwarded to the ICANN Board by the ASO, as well as its ratification by the ICANN Board. In this context, the ICANN Board adopted its own Procedures for the Review of Internet Number Resource Policies Forwarded by the ASO for Ratification.

Among other features, these Procedures state that the Board will decide, as and when appropriate, that ICANN staff should follow the development of a particular global policy, undertaking an “early awareness” tracking of proposals in the addressing community. To this end, staff should issue background reports periodically, forwarded to the Board, to all ICANN Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees and posted at the ICANN Web site.

At its meeting on 23 April 2009, the Board resolved to request tracking of the development of a Global Policy Proposal for the Allocation of IPv4 Blocks to Regional Internet Registries, under discussion in the addressing community. The status overview presented below is compiled in response to this request and will be further updated as developments proceed, for information to ICANN entities and the wider community. This is the third issue of the tracking of this policy.

Status Overview

The approach is that IANA will serve as repository for IPv4 blocks returned by the RIRs and then allocate them to the RIRs according to need. Two phases are foreseen:

1. Initially, IANA just collects recovered IPv4 space from the RIRs, no smaller than /24 blocks (256 addresses).

2. From the moment that the IANA free pool is exhausted (i.e. when the last five /8 blocks have been allocated according to an already ratified global policy), IANA also handles requests from RIRs (maximum of two requests per RIR per year) for IPv4 address space and allocates according to need and availability. The minimum allocation to an RIR is a /24 and the maximum allocation is one tenth of IANA's available IPv4 address space. No allocation will take place in case that the above maximum allocation is less than a /24. In this phase, IANA will also continue to receive any recently recovered space from the RIRs.

Originally, a first global policy proposal draft for handling of recovered IPv4 address space was introduced in the APNIC region, rapidly followed by slightly modified proposals as follows:

• A version (prop-069-v001) "Global policy proposal for the allocation of IPv4 blocks to Regional Internet Registries”, introduced on the APNIC policy list on 23 Jan 2009
• A modified version (prop-069-v002), introduced on the APNIC policy list on 3 February 2009 and presented at the APNIC 27 meeting on 26 February 2009, where consensus was reached after some clarifications
• A version (prop-069-v003) clarified as agreed at APNIC 27 and adopted in APNIC on 22 May 2009.

The following relates to the most current version, which has been introduced on the policy mailing lists in all other RIRs.

On 5 March 2009, the ASO AC recognized the proposal as fulfilling the formal requirements as a candidate for a Global Policy.

The proposal has also been discussed at the most recent meetings of ARIN, RIPE, AfriNIC and LACNIC, and has passed final call in AfriNIC and LACNIC. Once adopted in all RIRs, i.e. ARIN, AfriNIC, LACNIC, RIPE and APNIC, the proposal will be handled by the NRO EC and the ASO AC according to their procedures before being submitted to the ICANN Board for ratification.

The table below outlines the steps taken within each RIR for the current proposal. Hyperlinks are included for easy access.

Status of current proposal