Meeting of the ARIN Advisory Council - 14 April 1999 [Archived]

Atlanta, Georgia

The meeting was called to order at 9:20am by Alec Peterson, Chair. The attendees were Steve Corbato, Bill Darte, Avi Freedman, Guy Middleton, Alec Peterson, Dave Whipple and Cathy Wittbrodt, Advisory Council (AC) Members. Also in attendance were Kim Hubbard, ARIN President, Dennis Molloy, ARIN counsel and Mary K. Lee, notetaker.

Alec Peterson noted that there were not enough members present to achieve quorum and the meeting was adjourned. The AC decided to take this opportunity to informally discuss various items from the agenda.

Statistics.

The AC was presented with a package of prepared statistics on IP allocations and ASN assignments. First time allocations are increasing because of the new policies regarding minimum allocation. ASN assignments are also going up. It was noted that the number of rejected requests from ISPs is small. Kim Hubbard stated that part of this is due to many requests still pending. It was noted that a lot of small ISPs have been upgraded to medium. The number of CIDR blocks issued is also increasing.

Jeremy Porter arrived at 10AM and the requirement for quorum was met. The meeting is reconvened and the work from the earlier informal session is accepted.

Routing Table Monitoring.

Cathy Wittbrodt summarized the AC committee meeting held to discuss routing table measurements. Cathy stated that she would like to solidify the information the AC is looking for. Kim Hubbard suggested that an official Working Group (WG) be formed and include AC members and ARIN general members.

Cathy Wittbrodt asked if there is a correlation between assignments and the routing tables. Bill Darte said that the AC needs to know the effect of the new policies on the routing tables. Cathy Wittbrodt posed two questions. First, how do allocations from ARIN, RIPE and APNIC directly effect the routing tables? And second, would an educational effort make a difference?

Action Item: Cathy Wittbrodt will send the minutes of the committee meeting held in February to the member’s mailing list. An AC member will act as chair of the WG. It was requested that Kim Hubbard have a mailing list setup for this new WG. It will be called the Routing Table Measurement and Analysis Working Group and the address will be rtma@arin.net.

Dave Whipple wanted to know if ARIN should think about training customers. Kim Hubbard responded that ARIN’s charter is indeed educational. Alec Peterson inquired about a WG for instructions - this was mentioned at the Member Meeting of April 13. Dave suggested an industry education group. Bill Darte stated that it could be called the ARIN Education WG. After discussion, it was determined that a WG will be created to develop industry wide training and educational documents to be called the Community Learning Education Working Group and the mailing list address will be clew@arin.net.

Direct member voting for Board seats.

Kim Hubbard stated that Dennis Molloy, ARIN legal counsel, is working on the process for direct member voting for Board seats. Dennis Molloy stated that this a major step in the evolution of the ARIN organization. Dennis Molloy was asked if the voting could be done online or must it be done at the Member Meeting. Cathy Wittbrodt asked if there would still be a nomination process involving the AC. Jeremy Porter wanted to know if voting could be done by proxy. Dennis Molloy responded that voting by proxy is very complicated. Alec Peterson stated that he would like to see online voting. Dennis Molloy stated that online voting adds a lot of complexity to the process. Kim Hubbard suggested that the slate of nominees could be presented at the annual Member Meeting and the nominees could then introduce themselves and answer questions. The voting could then be done online after the meeting. Kim Hubbard said that the procedure would be written up for review.

ASO Status.

Steve Corbato stated that he had requested this item so that the AC would be appraised as to the stability of ICANN. It was noted that ICANN is still supported by the U.S. government and that ICANN will probably go forward. Kim Hubbard reported that on Monday night, April 12, there was an open ASO meeting. The consensus from the meeting was for an ASO to be formed consisting of the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). Steve Corbato proposed that the plan for the ASO should address multinational concerns, maybe a cross RIR task force. This would enable a multinational corporation to attend the meetings of only one of the RIRs, but ensure that their views would be shared with the other registries. Kim Hubbard explained that there would be an address council consisting of representatives of all RIR memberships that would allow for multi-national organizations to be well-represented.

Issues from Member Meeting.

Kim Hubbard briefed the AC about suggestions from yesterday’s Member Meeting. The members would like to see the policy portion of the member meetings separated from operational issues and open up the policy portion to the general public. Thus, there would be an ARIN public meeting to discuss policy issues and member-only meetings to discuss operational, financial and administrative issues. The membership also recommended to include membership in ARIN as an additional service to all ISPs receiving IP space from ARIN. The costs of providing membership would be included in registration services fees. Membership in ARIN would continue to be open to any other entities as well.

Dave Whipple moved that the AC recommend to the Board of Trustees (BoT) that the policy and operational meetings for ARIN be held separately and that the policy meetings be open to the public. He further stated that the policy meetings would be for policy related to IP and AS, non-operational issues. Jeremy Porter seconded this recommendation and the vote in favor was unanimous.

Steve Corbato moved that the AC recommend to the BoT that the membership fee be bundled with the regular ISP registration fee and that a flat, lower fee for membership be charged to all others. Further, attendees of the open policy meetings who are not members of ARIN will be charged an attendance fee for these meetings. Bill Darte seconded this recommendation and the vote was as follows - Guy Middleton abstained and the rest were in favor of this recommendation.

Cathy Wittbrodt asked Kim Hubbard to keep the AC aware of the ASO proposal status and also to alert the AC members as to which ICANN meetings will be held concerning the ASO so that AC and ARIN members may attend if they wish.

Swamp space for critical infrastructure network.

Kim Hubbard presented the RIR meeting update to the AC. The RIRs do not want to give large blocks of addresses (minimum /20 in ARIN’s case and /19 in RIPE’s) and propose that some swamp space be divided among the RIRs to be used for critical infrastructure networks. This space would be obtained from the IANA. Some general discussion took place concerning route name servers and consideration of making a general statement that these allocations would be made when the public interest is at stake. A question was raised about giving address space to internet exchanges. It was determined that they need to be “public” exchange points. Kim Hubbard wanted to know if there should be a list of public internet exchanges.

Alec Peterson moved that the AC make a recommendation to the BoT that ARIN be allowed to allocate to IANA approved route name servers an allocation no longer than a /24. Cathy Wittbrodt seconded this recommendation and it was approved unanimously.

Cathy Wittbrodt moved that the AC recommend to the BoT that ARIN be allowed to allocate address space for public exchange points. A block will be dedicated for allocations to these exchange points. The allocation will be no longer than a /24. The internet exchange operator will provide justification for the allocation including, connection policy, location, minimum of two other participants, ASN and contact information. The internet exchange operators must agree that the allocation may not be announced externally and a clause stating this will be placed in WHOIS. Avi Freedman seconded this recommendation and all were in favor with the exception of Guy Middleton, who was opposed. Cathy Wittbrodt requested that the recommendation be amended to include the statement that this does not preclude internet exchanges requesting address space from ARIN under other policies.

Jeremy Porter seconded the amendment to the recommendation. Guy Middleton abstained and the rest were in favor.

Dave Whipple noted that this does not resolve the issue of multihomed customers who do not qualify for a /21.

The AC will revisit this issue for specific incidents when for the good of the Internet other exceptions should be considered.

The next AC meeting is tentatively scheduled for early August. The meeting was adjourned at 1:15PM.