[aso-policy] Criteria for emerging RIRs

["Paul Wilson" <pwilson@apnic.net>]

Following is a first draft document describing suggested criteria for
recognition by ICANN of new RIRs. This was requested by ICANN in order to
refine the recognition criteria which are described in the ASO MoU.

The RIRs would welcome comments on this draft document.

Paul Wilson,
ASO Secretariat.

====

Criteria for the Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries

DRAFT v 0.1 - 22 December 1999


Abstract

This document details proposed criteria for establishment of new Regional
Internet Registries (RIRs), which may be delegated responsibility for
management of Internet resources within a given region of the globe.

The RIRs which currently share global responsibility for Internet resource
management (that is, APNIC, ARIN and RIPE NCC) have developed this document
cooperatively, in response to a request from ICANN. As requested, this
document provides criteria and guidelines specifically for ICANN to take
into account when evaluating applications for recognition of new RIRs.

Introduction

IP address space is currently distributed by the three existing RIRs that
receive address space from IANA and allocate it further to Local Internet
Registries (LIRs) or Internet Service Providers (ISPs). These LIRs*, in
turn, assign addresses to end-users for use in operational networks.

This well established registry system has been developed within the
communities that need and use IP address space for their operations and
businesses. It has evolved over the past 10 years and is based on structures
and procedures that are open, transparent, and now deeply embedded.

The three existing RIRs cover a service area that spans the entire world,
namely the following regions:

- Europe (RIPE NCC)
- Middle East (RIPE NCC)
- Africa (ARIN & RIPE NCC)
- North America (ARIN)
- Latin America including the Caribbean (ARIN)
- Asia-Pacific (APNIC)

It is realistic to assume that new RIRs will be established in the future to
serve some of the above regions. Two regions have already announced their
intentions to create a new RIR: Africa and Latin America. However, in order
to ensure globally fair distribution of IP address space, and to minimise
address space fragmentation, it is expected that the number of RIRs will
remain small.

According to the Address Supporting Organisation Memorandum of Understanding
(ASO MoU) it is the responsibility of ICANN to approve the establishment of
new RIRs. This document describes a number of principles for the successful
establishment and operation of an RIR. The existing RIRs agree that these
criteria are essential preconditions for the approval of new RIRs, and that
they provide ICANN with the minimum guidelines needed when evaluating
applications for recognition of new RIRs.

(*) For the purposes of this document, any reference to LIRs can be taken to
mean LIRs and ISPs.

Principles

The proposed evaluation criteria for new RIRs are listed below. The
numbering which is used is not significant - all criteria are considered
essential in an organisation which is proposing to establish a new RIR.

1) The region of coverage should meet the scale to be defined by ICANN,
given the need to avoid global address fragmentation.

The proposed RIR must operate internationally in a large geographical region
of approximately continental size.

Each region should be served by a single RIR, established under one
management and in one location. The establishment of multiple RIRs in one
region would almost inevitably lead to competition amongst registries, which
works strongly against the resource management goals of the registry system.

The establishment of a "distributed" RIR, with branches in multiple
locations within a region, is also not supported, as it may lead to:

- fragmentation of address space within the region;
- difficulty for co-ordination and co-operation between RIRs;
- confusion for the community within the region;
- possible competition between separate branches of the same RIR, or else
the creation, effectively, of two "sub-regions" within the region.

2) The new RIR must demonstrate that it has the broad support of the LIRs
(ISP community) in the proposed region.

Clear consensus must be demonstrated within the community that a very
substantial majority of the ISPs in the region are prepared to support the
new RIR. The community must state that it is interested in receiving
services from this new RIR and that they are convinced the new RIR can and
will provide this. The community must also show that it is willing to
support this new RIR vigorously, not only with their active participation in
its bottom-up development but also financially.

The new RIR must show that every effort has been made to contact and
convince existing LIRs in their region to gather support for the
establishment of a new RIR in this region (e.g. by way of archives of public
mailing lists, web sites, records of contacts with individual LIRs).

It must be demonstrated that when established the new RIR's membership will
include a significant percentage of the existing LIRs within the new RIR's
region of coverage, specifically including those LIRs already receiving IP
address registration services and/or other related services from an existing
RIR.

This point is critical, as it may be difficult to "force" an LIR to go to a
new RIR, if they are already being served by an existing RIR. At the same
time it would not be logical for some LIRs to be getting address
registration services from an existing RIR and others from a new RIR. The
entire region should be served by the new RIR and the existing RIR must be
able to convince its members in this region to go to the new RIR for
services.

3) Bottom-up self-governance structure for setting local policies.

The new RIR needs to have and to clearly document defined procedures for the
development of resource management policies which may be implemented
regionally, as well as those that may be recommended to the Address Council
for consideration as global policies. These procedures must be open and
transparent, be accessible to all interested parties, and ensure fair
representation of all constituencies within the region.

These procedures should include holding at least one annual policy
development meeting that is open and accessible to all interested parties.
In addition to public meetings, the new RIR needs to maintain public
archived mailing lists to discuss policy development.

Further, the new RIR should have the capability to undertake its
responsibility to host an Address Council General Assembly Meeting, as
described in section 5 of the ASO MoU.

4) Neutrality and impartiality in relation to all interested parties, and
particularly the LIRs.

All organisations that receive service from the new RIR must be treated
equally. The policies and guidelines proposed and implemented by the RIR
need to ensure fair distribution of resources, and impartial treatment of
the members/requestors.

The new RIR should be established as an independent, not-for-profit and open
membership association.

5) Technical expertise

The new RIR must be technically capable of providing the required allocation
and registration services to the community in its region. Specific technical
requirements include provisioning by the RIR of:

- stable connectivity within the region and internationally;
- whois database server(s);
- DNS name server(s);
- suitable internal infrastructure for operational purposes; and
- enough technically capable staff to ensure appropriate service levels to
the LIRs, and to the Internet community.

6) Adherence to global policies regarding address space conservation,
aggregation and registration

Policies of the new RIR must be established to ensure that the main goals of
the registry system, in particular conservation of IP address space and
aggregation of routing information, are respected. Furthermore, local
policies that are developed in addition to established global policies need
to be consistent with these and other global policy goals. All RIR policies
need to be fully documented and publicly accessible.

7) Activity plan

With its application for recognition, the new RIR should provide a published
activity plan containing activities that are clearly within the purview of
an RIR, and which is explicitly supported by the community of organisations
supporting the new RIR.

It is recommended that new RIRs should not restrict activities exclusively
to IP address allocations and assignments (registration services).
Traditionally, the neutral and independent nature of RIRs have encouraged
their use by their communities for wider support, communication, education
and/or co-ordination purposes. Activities provided by existing RIRs in
addition to registration services include: technical training, public
mailing list maintenance, information services, database maintenance,
meeting organisation, and general liaison and co-ordination tasks. However,
any such additional activities should always be supported by the RIR's
membership as consistent with both the basic operating principles of RIRs
and the interests of the members.

However, it is strongly recommended that the new RIR should not be involved
in forward domain name assignment or administration, due to the entirely
different user communities, geographic boundaries, policy environments, and
business models which are involved. So different are the requirements of DNS
and Internet resource related functions, that where located within one
organisation, they would compete destructively for resources, or else be
eventually partitioned into separate independent organisations.

8) Funding model

As mentioned, the new RIR should be established as a not-for-profit
association. A budget related to the activity plan must be drawn up and
published, and should demonstrate explicit support from the community of
organisations supporting the new RIR.

Initial sponsorship, government grants and private grants and/or donations
are perfectly acceptable, but the RIR must be demonstrably independent and
autonomous in its operations. For this reason, it is seen as inevitable that
a new RIR would eventually be financially independent, and financially
supported entirely by its membership.

9) Record Keeping

All RIRs must maintain proper records of all registry activities, including
the archiving of all information collected from LIRs in the process of
making IP address space assignments. This data is needed for internal
purposes (namely, the evaluation of subsequent requests from the same
customers), and also to maintain the audibility of RIR operations, essential
in demonstrating responsible and neutral operations.

As English is considered the official language of the registry system, all
archival information should be kept in English. This is necessary to be
consistent with the existing registry system and to communicate with other
RIRs and with IANA.

10) Confidentiality

Information collected by a RIR in the registration process must be kept in
strict confidence, and used for registration purposes only. It must be
transmitted only to another RIR or IANA upon request, but will not be
transmitted to any other party unless explicitly agreed to in writing by the
end user.

RIRs may establish their own local standards and policies for
confidentiality, providing that the basic confidentiality provisions are
maintained.

===

*       on-line archive: http://aso.icann.org/wilma-bin/wilma/aso-policy     *
*   To unsubscribe:  send "unsubscribe" to aso-policy-request@aso.icann.org  *