ARIN 45 Public Policy Meeting, Day 2 Transcript - Wednesday, 17 June 2020 [Archived]

Please Note: This transcript may contain errors due to errors in transcription or in formatting it for posting. Therefore, the material is presented only to assist you, and is not an authoritative representation of discussion at the meeting. If additional clarification and details are required, videos from our original webcast are available on our YouTube channel.

For an executive summary of this day of the meeting, read the meeting recap on the TeamARIN website.

Public Policy Meeting, Day 2 - Opening Announcements

John Curran: Good morning. I’m John Curran, and I’d like to welcome you all back to the ARIN 45 Virtual Meeting.

I am going to open up today’s meeting, and I will do the introductions and get us started with our policy discussions. So, welcome, everyone. We’re glad you could be here, and very happy to use this medium to see how we can handle remote participation and a meeting entirely virtual given the circumstances we’re in.

Participating today, we have the normal customary folks we have at a meeting. Our ARIN Board of Trustees. That includes our Chair, Paul Andersen; our Vice Chair, Bill Sandiford; Nancy Carter, our Treasurer; Catherine Middleton; Peter Harrison; myself, President and CEO; Dan Alexander; and Steve Ryan, who is our General Counsel and Secretary.

The Advisory Council is also present on the call. The Advisory Council is the one that handles the Policy Development Process at ARIN, and works with the community to help evolve the policies so that we follow a process that lets – makes sure everyone has a chance for their say on the policies and to make sure they go through appropriately, that they’re well considered and fair to everyone.

We also have the NRO Number Council with us. The NRO Number Council works with the other RIRs, representatives from those RIRs to work on global policy matters. So, they’re also participating.

Participants, for folks who want to look. You can actually see it on your participant bar. We have approximately 82 participants. And that includes 18 of the staff and speakers that we’ll have today. So, very good turnout.

Rules and reminders, when we get to the discussion of the policies. Our Chair of the Board of Trustees, Paul Andersen, will moderate the discussion. Please state your name and affiliation clearly each time.

This applies whether or not you’re using the Q&A method or whether you’re speaking live by being recognized at the microphone.

Standards of your behavior are in the Discussion Guide. They’re available online. You can click there if you want to see the Standards of Behavior. They call for everyone to respect each other in how they handle the discussion.

The chat. So there is a chat going right now. And folks might notice that. If you click on the chat button, you can bring it up. And I’ll tell folks, make sure you set the chat to “all panelists and attendees” if that’s what you’re intending. The default is just the panelists. And a lot of you want to speak with each other. So reminders to remind you that’s how you make that change.

And then in addition to the chat, we have the reminder that everyone should be in the chat professional and on topic. It is being recorded. It’s being kept for the archive. Please follow again the Standards of Behavior.

We have the Q&A button also at your bottom bar in your Zoom interface here. I know you’re all familiar with it. But this is a little different than your normal Zoom interface.

And at any time during the presentations, you can enter a question into the Q&A and they’ll be recognized. At the point when they’re recognized at the end, we’ll go through the question-and-answer queue before we open it up for general mic on the topic.

If you raise your hand to recognize that you want to speak, and will be put in queue. Once we’ve done all the Q&A, we’ll see if there’s any raised hands. And we’ll, at that point, promote you so that you can actually be heard by the panelists.

The other aspect that people need to keep in mind: we are recording and live streaming. So that’s important. You are being recorded. It also means because there’s a live streaming transcript, I ask everyone speak slowly and clearly to make sure that the transcriptionist can make an accurate record of the discussion.

With that, let me go through today’s agenda.

We have a couple of policy proposals that we’re going to handle: ARIN-2019-21, Reserve Pool Replenishment; and ARIN-2020-1, Clarifying the Holding Period for Resources Received. We then have a break, just as we did yesterday. And we’ll come back from the break and pick up another policy discussion, 2020 – Grandfathering of Organizations Removed From the Waitlist.

And then we’ll go into Draft Policy, ARIN-2020-3, IPv6 Nano-Allocations. Then we’ll have an update from ARIN’s Governance Working Group, and then several Board reports – the Treasurer’s Report, the Board of Trustees Report. And just as yesterday we’ll end with open microphone session and closing announcements.

So, it’s a pretty busy day. You can find the agenda online, if you’re interested, at ARIN45_agenda. And with that, I’ll see if there’s any questions. I don’t see any questions. And so let’s get started right into the policy discussions.

Our next presenter is Owen DeLong, and he’s going to be presenting Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2019-21.

Over to you, Owen.

Beverly Hicks: Owen, just a second. I had trouble promoting.

John Curran: Not a problem. Very good.

Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2019-21: Reserved Pool Replenishment

Owen DeLong: Okay. Hopefully people can hear me now. The unmute button disappears when you get promoted.

John Curran: We can hear you, Owen.

Owen DeLong: Okay. So this is 2019-21, Reserved Pool Replenishment. Waiting for the lag on slide advance. There we go.

History: Advisory Council shepherds, myself, and Kerrie Richards. Proposal, ARIN-prop-281, November 15th. And hang on one second here. I guess you don’t get to see me.

Draft Policy was promoted on 24 December 2019. There we go. And was promoted to Recommended on March 24th of this year. It’s not yet been presented at an ARIN meeting. This is its first time. It is in recommended draft status. So this could be the last time you see it before it goes to Last Call.

Last update was February 17th. It’s been pretty stable.

Staff and legal. ARIN staff understood it exactly as the author intended it, which is a good thing. It further states – yeah, you guys can read the slide. I don’t need to read it to you.

So basically what this policy will do, while I’m waiting for the slide to advance, is it will take returned addresses and reclaimed addresses and if the reserve pools for critical infrastructure, exchange points, TTLD servers, that sort of thing, and/or the IPv6 transition pool have less than a three-year supply, it will prioritize transferring the reclaimed and recovered addresses into those pools to replenish them.

Staff had a couple of comments. They’ve all been addressed with the most recent policy revision. The primary one was the one improvement –

Paul Andersen: Owen, would you mind just reading all the comments into the record, please.

Owen DeLong: Sure. Draft Policy 2019-21 is well-written and easy to understand. There’s one improvement that could be made, and that’s which reserved pool would have priority if both 4.4 and 4.10 pools fell below a three-year threshold at the same time, which was addressed by the language update. If new reserved pools come about, then they would also need to be prioritized. Language takes care of that as well.

ARIN staff understands that we will need to keep track of the three-year requirement for each pool and advise the community of same.

ARIN staff recommends that as resources come back to ARIN by a variety of means, instead of referring to returned resources policy should refer to IPv4 number resources that become available for reissuance. And in fact that language was adopted in the recent change.

The legal assessment: If ARIN staffs’ comment is adopted, then there are no material legal issues. It was adopted. So, the next bullet doesn’t apply. Not all revoked resources can be immediately provided for reissuance. New language takes care of that. Well, some may need to be held, et cetera, et cetera. The “become available” language addresses those possibilities and was adopted in the current draft.

Resource impact minimal, could be implemented within three months. Staff training, updated guidelines and internal procedures, standard documentation updates as usual.

So now the shepherds’ slides. These are relatively brief, because there’s not a whole lot else to add.

This language was adopted as mentioned before. These issues are addressed in the current RDP language.

One commenter thought this was obvious and already happening as policy. Another commenter expressed neutrality. Beyond that, there were seven commenters who expressed support, which constitutes the vast majority of comments we received.

And with that, we go to discussion. Please remember to state your name, your affiliation, whether you support or oppose the policy, and comment on the merits and suggest improvements.

Paul Andersen: Thank you. So we open the virtual queues again. As Owen mentioned, this is a Recommended Draft Policy. So it may be the last time we have an opportunity to speak. Just as a reminder it’s always useful to state if you oppose or agree. You don’t need to state anything further. And the Q&A obviously gives you great way for that. And, please, especially when using the Q&A, please state your affiliation as part of your comments for the record.

So, we’ll give it a few seconds here to see if anybody wishes to raise their hands to speak or if there’s Q&A. Okay. I see we have our first comment.

Beverly Hicks: Kevin Blumberg from The Wire. Outside of a typo of returned in 4.1.X.2 on the ARIN website I support the policy as written.

Paul Andersen: Thank you very much, Kevin – happy birthday – for that comment. Any other comments?

Beverly Hicks: David Farmer, University of Minnesota and author of the proposal. I support as written.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, David.

Beverly Hicks: No further current.

Paul Andersen: Anybody else want to speak, we’ll give it about 30 seconds for you to raise your hand or type a comment. If it’s a long comment give us a queue to know that you’re coming.

Beverly Hicks: Joe Provo, Google, ARIN AC: Support as written.

And Andrew Dul, ARIN AC, 8 Continents Networks: Generally support, but at the same time this seems like additional policy that is not necessarily required.

Paul Andersen: Thank you. We’ll give it another 15 seconds and then close the queue. Owen, did you want to add anything on those comments?

Owen DeLong: No, I’m good.

Beverly Hicks: We have a hand raised. Mercia, you’re allowed to talk. Open mic.

Paul Andersen: Name and affiliation, please, again.

Mercia Arnold: Mercia Arnold, Vice President of Risk Management and compliance for the Obsidian Group, Incorporated. We support and thank you for the opportunity to listen.

Paul Andersen: Thank you for your comment.

Seeing no further comments or hands raised, we’ll close the queues. Owen, thank you very much for your presentation.

Owen DeLong: You’re welcome.

Paul Andersen: We’ll go as we did yesterday, and we’re going to hold a sense of the room. So the poll will be, the question is on Recommended Draft Policy ARIN-2019-21, are you in favor or against this policy proceeding.

We have two options. You can either answer the poll that just popped up for you. If for some reason you are unable to use that poll, please either say “in favor” or “against” in the Q&A, and it will be recorded. And we’ll give it 30 seconds. And you can all quietly sing Kevin Blumberg, happy birthday.

Last call, when we have the poll results ready can we have the results. Thank you all.

Beverly Hicks: At the close of the poll there were 97 attendees; 38 of them voted in favor and three against.

Paul Andersen: That input will be provided to the AC for their consideration.

With that I’ll turn over to Chris Tacit, who will give the next Policy Proposal. Go ahead, Chris, when you’re ready. Chris, I believe you’re on mute.

Chris Tacit: Can people hear me okay?

Paul Andersen: Can hear you okay. Go ahead when you’re ready.

Chris Tacit: Am I visible?

Paul Andersen: You’re visible.

Draft Policy ARIN-2020-1: Clarify Holding Period for Resources Received via 4.1.8 Waitlist

Chris Tacit: Good. Okay. Thank you, all, very much. So this is Draft Policy 2020-1: Clarify Holding Period for Resources Received via 4.1.8 Waitlist.

Alicia Trotman and I are the shepherds for this Draft Policy. If you would like to go to the next slide, please.

So this problem – this policy stems from a problem statement identified as the result of a recent policy experience report where it was noted that there’s ambiguity as to whether or not the 60-month restriction on transferring resources received via the waitlist applies to M&A transfers under Section 8.2.

The purpose of the proposal is to clarify that the restriction does not apply to this situation. Next slide, please.

So, you’ll see – I will read the text for the record – but you’ll see that the red text is the addition. Right now it reads, “Address space distributed from the waitlist will not be eligible for transfer for a period of 60 months.” That would be changed to “Address space distributed from the waitlist will not be eligible for transfer, with the exception of Section 8.2 transfers, for a period of 60 months.”

Next slide, please. Volume of PPML feedback has been extremely low. We’ve made two attempts to reach out to the community and get feedback. Just the little bit of feedback that has been obtained has resulted in expression of concern that the proposed exception could lead to fraud.

Next slide, please. So, as a result of that, we’re interested in discussing whether, on balance, the community believes that the creation of the proposed exception would result in a material risk of fraud or not.

And that is it. Except for comments on this question and any other questions you might have.

Paul Andersen: Okay. So, we’ll reopen the queue. Thank you, Chris, for that. Discussion – this is a Draft Policy.

Chris Tacit: Yes.

Paul Andersen: From all the other policies we’ve seen. What we generally suggest on this, there’s two inputs – in favor or against. So it’s also very useful for those new, useful to the Advisory Council. Even if you dislike the solution, it’s useful if you can tell the AC if the problem is something that they should continue to work on, so they can continue to cycle back and try and solve that problem perhaps with a different approach.

So, I invite you to start using the Q&A, and I see we have a hand up already, so let’s go to the hand up. Please state your name, date of birth and your affiliation.

Beverly Hicks: Kevin, you’re able to talk.

Kevin Blumberg: Kevin Blumberg, The Wire. Thank you for the happy birthday background. I appreciate it.

I understand what this is trying to fix. And on the outside, that seems fine. But I do share the concern that the ability to then use Section 8.2 to move stuff around all over the place could be problematic.

I don’t know how that could be codified in policy. And I don’t know what the scenario is if somebody requests an 8.2 transfer today of space that was recently brought in to them through the waitlist, et cetera. But this policy, while it seems very clean, seems to create more concern than it does solve.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Kevin. Chris Tacit, do you want to go first? And I see John Curran is also here, so I’ll have him answer that.

Chris Tacit: I’m happy to take all the input now, because we’ve already heard that comment from others as well. I’m interested if anybody actually may have a way to solve this.

Paul Andersen: Okay, Chris. John, do you want to answer that?

John Curran: Sure. So, recognize we face an inherent problem here. In general, 8.2 transfers are transfers to recognize mergers, acquisitions and reorganizations that have already occurred. And many times the parties involved, the IP address number resources are secondary to the transaction.

So the community has a choice. It can allow the update of the registry in such cases or it can not allow it because of the nature of the address block. It is true, if you allow it there could be cases where parties are incented to do a transaction entirely to get at the address blocks. That’s a real potential.

Is this solvable? Well, as long as we do allow parties to be wholly acquired and transfer their address space, it’s not a relatively easy thing to solve. It’s – this question is a more inherent question. Do you wish to not recognize transfers that will occur anyway for these address blocks?

Beverly Hicks: I believe we lost Paul. So at this point I’m going to –

John Curran: I can take it. We lost Paul, but we have some more questions in the Q&A. I might as well read them while I’m here.

David Farmer, University of Minnesota, indicates support as written. While there’s a risk of fraud, however I don’t see it as practical to disallow 8.2 transfers.

Mercia Arnold asks a question: Is there data at ARIN on the number of 8.2 transfers that have been requested before the execution of a merger? What metrics are all transfers, whether 8.2 or other means?

That looks like a staff question. And I might as well answer – very good – might as well answer since we are here.

So the challenge, of course, is that we don’t get a lot of data because we don’t often get a request to do an 8.2 transfer before the underlying transaction has been consummated. So, unfortunately, we don’t have data to present.

It’s very rare that a party comes to us indicating that they’re going to conditionally acquire the whole company or not based on what we say on simply the address blocks.

More common is, parties coming to us saying they’ve done a transaction and they’re updating their records to reflect the new legal entity.

So at last, there’s no data to provide to Mercia on that.

Paul Andersen: Apologies. Zoom went haywire, because I had not had my headset in, as someone pointed out. My apologies. And thank you, John, for covering.

John Curran: I’m now going to step back. Paul, you have the floor. And, Hollis, if you want to continue reading the Q&A.

Beverly Hicks: I’ll go ahead and take that one. Next Q&A, Owen DeLong, Farsight Security, ARIN AC. I support the proposal as written. While there’s potential for the policy to be abused, there’s somewhat of a cap that as a result of the reductions in the 4.1.8 limits enacted last year.

Paul Andersen: Thank you for the feedback. And, Chris, just let me know if you want to respond directly to any of them.

Next comment, please.

Beverly Hicks: Andrew Dul, ARIN AC, 8 Continents Networks. How often has staff seen the issue so far? One option for additional text might be to include the text which states that an M&A can happen if the waitlist-received numbers are part of the other significant blocks being transferred.

Paul Andersen: Does staff want to respond to that now or come back?

John Curran: Let me respond, Paul. Two things. Know that there is a case where past history is not an indicator of future performance.

As we recently significantly changed, we put on hold the waitlist policy and then reopened the waitlist with a new policy. So past experience is probably not quite as relevant.

The question that occurred – has been asked, is whether or not to allow such a transfer when it’s part of a other list of significant blocks being transferred. And that’s certainly an option.

That does indicate that a company that is being acquired that doesn’t have other significant blocks being transferred, you would not update the registry, even though they have already consummated a sale.

So, this is something, if the AC wants to put in, they can. But recognize you’re going to end up with the same situation we discussed. So, it’s worth deep consideration.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, John, for that. We’ll take our next comment.

Beverly Hicks: Laura Ling, AmerisourceBergen. There seems to be growing awareness that IP space needs to be tracked and consolidated. And not having the assurance that additional space would be requested may keep some entities from consolidating by transfer. Many times when space is acquired by the company, the space has already been used and isn’t likely getting free space. It seems that it might keep entities from updating their agreements for legacy space.

Paul Andersen: Okay. Thank you for the comment. Next comment, please.

Beverly Hicks: Leo Vegoda, And Polus LLC: Given a choice, I favor accurate registration data. While I see the potential downside for this proposal, good registration data is the best foundation to a registry’s value.

Paul Andersen: Next comment – I see two more.

Beverly Hicks: Adam Thompson from MERLIN: I believe that the risk is real, but ARIN’s primary purpose is to keep the database up to date. That, therefore, overwhelms the risk of allowing these transfers.

Paul Andersen: Before we get to the last comment, we’ll keep the queues open for another 20 seconds and then we’ll be closing. Please either raise your hand or signal feverishly in the Q&A that you’re putting in your question, and then we’ll take our next question.

Beverly Hicks: I don’t have any further questions.

Paul Andersen: Oh, sorry. I guess that we just did – now we do.

Beverly Hicks: Celeste Anderson, Pacific Wave: Would there be a benefit in having a time limit before a waitlist transfer for merger and acquisition?

Paul Andersen: Chris or John, want to address that or take that as feedback?

John Curran: So, again, that’s probably something for the Advisory Council to consider. Recognize that we have a time limit now in place for everything that’s received from the waitlist. And what 8.2 – the question is when someone comes in with a acquisition, a timer would just be a delay in updating the registry.

The challenge here is that you have to recognize whether you’re trying to shape behavior or whether you’re trying to maintain an accurate registry. Not updating doesn’t necessarily do anything to shape behavior. If that’s something that folks are trying to work on here, they need to look at the fact that anyone can create a new entity, get on the waitlist, qualify for a block and then be acquired.

And until you decide what part of that path you want to break, it’s only really a question of whether we’re updating the registry or not, not changing that path.

Paul Andersen: Go to the next question. Just a reminder, those that – there’s been some who have been indicating supporting or not in the chat. The chat is just a little side chat. That is not part of the record. Please make sure to use Q&A or raise your hand.

We’ve closed the mics – the queue is off. Old terminology dies hard. So, let us clear our last two questions, please.

Beverly Hicks: Question from Andrew Hadenfeldt, Allo Communications: Support as written. Although I share the broad concerns. Question, do other RIRs have a similar policy?

Paul Andersen: I’m just going to make an exception, because apparently there’s somebody having technical difficulty. Ron da Silva, individual affiliation, supports AC work on this. He’s apparently having problems either raising his hand or putting Q&A in.

Beverly Hicks: He’s driving.

Paul Andersen: We don’t recommend policying and driving, just as a – general. Call it ARIN on the Road.

With that, we’ll end our discussion. I thank Chris Tacit for the presentation.

We are going to do a poll, if I’m correct on this. Now, as this is a Draft Policy, not a Recommended Draft Policy, the question we ask revolves less around the text and more around the problem statement. Is this a problem that the AC should continue to work on. I ask all those to please either use the poll in front of you or respond in the Q&A that you have.

If for some reason you can’t do either of those, please raise your hand and we’ll call on you.

Can we unmute Chris so he can indicate which way he wishes? He’s unable to – go ahead, Chris.

Chris Tacit: Okay. Thank you.

Paul Andersen: No, I’m sorry, Chris Woodfield. I apologize, Chris Tacit. Chris, are you in favor or against?

Chris Woodfield: So I actually wanted to point out that the poll question I’m seeing right now does not ask if the AC should continue to work on this.

The question I’m seeing in the poll is: “On balance, does the community believe that the creation of the proposed exception would result in a material risk of fraud?” So would there be two questions posed on this one?

Paul Andersen: Thank you for pointing that out, Chris. So that is a good point of order. Please, everyone, just hang on one second.

Tina Morris, could you unmute and clarify what the question – is that the question that the AC would specifically like asked? I may have missed the memo. So I apologize.

Go ahead, Tina.

Tina Morris: Sorry. I had to unmute myself. I believe that is the correct question that was requested by the shepherd of this policy.

Paul Andersen: So that’s the only question, just to be clear?

Tina Morris: Yes.

Paul Andersen: Okay. So I apologize to the community. I get little things of which ones are polls, and generally we have a very standard question for each. And I – so could we clear this poll out and start again because obviously that’s a different question?

Beverly Hicks: Yes.

Paul Andersen: So, I apologize to everyone. Could we please put the poll back up, when it’s cleared out?

So the question is: “On balance, does the community believe that the creation of the proposed exception would result in material risk of fraud? Either are you yes or no. Either use the poll, Q&A, or as was done, please raise your hand.

Chris Tacit: There’s no open question showing in the Q&A.

Paul Andersen: Chris Tacit, because of your mode, so, please use the chat to –

Chris Tacit: Right.

Paul Andersen: Thank you.

Okay. Let’s close off the poll and take a second to tally the results.

Beverly Hicks: At the close of the poll there were 99 attendees; 17 voted yes and 30 voted no.

Paul Andersen: Okay. This input will be provided to the AC.

Thank you, Chris Tacit, for your presentation. You can stop your video at your leisure. And we’ll turn it over to Alyssa Moore for the next Policy Proposal.

Go ahead, Alyssa, when you’re ready.

Draft Policy ARIN-2020-2: Grandfathering of Organizations Removed from Waitlist by Implementation of ARIN-2019-16

Alyssa Moore: Just waiting for control. Hi, everyone. I wore my most outrageous sweater to go with the most outrageous Zoom background. So, this is fun.

Today I’m presenting on Draft Policy 2020-2. And it’s about grandfathering organizations that were removed from the waitlist by implementation of ARIN-2019-16 last year. I’ll go into a little bit of background about that.

So back in February 2019, the ARIN Board chose to suspend issuance of all IPv4 through the waitlist in light of misuse and fraud that became apparent at that time. And then the Board referred the section about the waitlist in the NRPM called fulfilling unmet needs to the Advisory Council for a recommendation.

So with that policy suspended the Advisory Council worked on the new language that would hopefully prevent that fraud of this nature in the future, and came up with an updated waitlist policy that went into effect on July 10th of last year.

So, in order to address fraud and misuse, the updated policy added some additional constraints on an organization’s eligibility for getting resources from the waitlist. And it also added some constraints on the subsequent uses of those resources.

Those constraints include limiting the block size that an Org can get to a /22. So that’s the largest size that anyone on the waitlist can obtain. They also placed a limit on the total existing IP address holdings of a party that made them eligible for the waitlist.

So any Org that is in possession of a /20 or less is eligible. Any party that has more resources than that is not eligible for the waitlist.

And it also made resources issued from the waitlist completely ineligible for transfer until a period of 60 months was up, so, five years. So if you get resources from the waitlist, you can’t just turn around and transfer them and monetize those. It’s a five-year holding period before an Org can do anything with those.

And so this presented a problem to a couple of Orgs who were on the waitlist. And I just want to highlight sort of the changes.

So in the old policy, requesters could specify the size of block they desired, and they could also specify the smallest size of block that they were willing to accept if it became available on the waitlist.

The old policy did not place a limit on the total existing holdings. So, right now if you have more than a /20, you’re ineligible. Previously that was not the case.

And then it also had a much shorter hold period. So resources issued from the waitlist were ineligible for transfer for one year and now it’s five years.

And so the problem statement associated with this policy is that the implementation of 2019-16, unmet requests, caused some organizations to be removed from the waiting list who had qualified – or who were approved under the old policies eligibility criteria.

These organizations should have been grandfathered when the waitlist was reopened to allow them to receive an allocation of IPv4 up to the policies – the new policy’s maximum size of a /22.

So, the policy statement is that we would add some temporary language into the NRPM that would be there until the policy objective is achieved.

So we talked about whether this is best achieved through a number resource policy in the NRPM or best achieved through other means and in a lot of depth at the AC. And we determined the best way to do this is through the Draft Policy or through the policy process.

And so the rest of the policy statement is that ARIN will restore organizations that were removed from the waitlist at the adoption of ARIN-2019-16 to their previous position if their total holdings of IPv4 address space amounts to a /18 or less. The maximum size aggregate that a reinstated organization may qualify for is a /22.

So notice that that policy statement still has a constraint on an Org total holdings, where previously there was not. And they would only qualify for up to the /22 that exists in the new policy.

All restored organizations extend their two-year approval by – and this is a variable – the number of months between July 2019 and the implementation of the new policy. And any request made to a transfer will be considered fulfilled and removed from the waiting list. And this would be implemented immediately.

So I have a few questions for discussion. There’s not been discussion of this on PPML yet. So all of these are wide open.

First of all, obviously do you support continue to work on it? The spirit of the proposal is the fact that some Orgs were not grandfathered and removed from the waitlist, a problem to begin with. If so, should grandfathered Orgs still have a limit placed on their total holdings? The proposal specified a /18 instead of the /20 that’s now in the NRPM.

And last, should grandfathered organizations be eligible for the new limit of a /22 or for their request based on the previous version of the policy? So as written currently, it’s up to that /22.

Paul Andersen: Thank you for putting it back on that slide.

The queues are open. You do, if you want to get your feedback posted, will need to either use the Q&A or the hand raised. There will not be a poll on this Draft Policy. There’s none been requested. So if you’re waiting until the end to do that, you’ll be disappointed.

So, again, it’s just as easy as putting in the Q&A, support or not. And with that, we will take – I see we have two Q&A, which we’ll take first, and then we’ll go to our attendees with hands up.

So let’s get both comments, the first one in please, Beverly.

Beverly Hicks: Laura Ling, AmerisourceBergen: What checks are done on organizations before space is assigned? Don’t the requests require new RSAs?

Paul Andersen: Do one of the staff Johns want to address that?

John Curran: Let me see if I can get a video going. Certainly. So, as we said before, updated RSAs, we do ask if you have an RSA that’s very old, more than two versions back, staff will ask you to update your RSA to the current one. That’s actually a benefit because the RSA terms are both clearer and have been to the community’s benefit in the revisions.

Regarding the first half of that question, I guess, Paul, could you repeat that briefly? Or, I’m, sorry, if someone could read it to me one more time – the organizations – I lost that question. If someone can bring me the first half.

Beverly Hicks: No problem. What checks are done on organizations before space is assigned?

John Curran: We validate the organization to make sure it’s representative of who is coming, that they have the right – that they represent the organization and the organization exists. If there’s other additional qualifications people are expecting, they need to let us know.

Paul Andersen: Let’s take the next question, please.

Beverly Hicks: Owen DeLong, Farsight Security, ARIN AC: Support continued work. Mixed emotions about what is most fair here. I think should keep a max /22 if we do this.

Paul Andersen: Okay. Thank you. Let’s go to our first raised hand, please. Please, again, state your name and affiliation.

Beverly Hicks: Chris Tacit, you should be able to talk at this point.

Chris Tacit: Okay. Thank you. Can you folks hear me okay?

Paul Andersen: We can hear you great.

Chris Tacit: I think definitely work should continue on this.

Paul Andersen: Before you get too far, Chris, can give us your affiliation.

Chris Tacit: Sorry, ARIN AC.

Paul Andersen: Just to keep it even.

Chris Tacit: – and Tacit Law. So I definitely think we should continue working on this. I think it’s a basic fairness issue that people who were on the list should be able to continue but under the new rule.

So, having said that, I think the /20 is the appropriate limit for reentry. And I do think that the new limit of a /22 is appropriate as the new max.

In other words, we’re just trying to put people in, as much as possible, in the same positions they would have been if they hadn’t been accidentally bumped off the list.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Chris. So, in support of the problem. Thank you for that. Let’s go to our next hand raise, please.

Kevin Blumberg: Kevin Blumberg, The Wire. Yes, I support continuing to work on it. Yes, I support the /18.

And I actually believe that the grandfathered Orgs should be allowed to, based on what their initial request would be, get what is in the new policy up to a maximum of the /20, which is allowed over time in the current policy.

My only caution, and the reason why I wanted to say this over voice rather than text, is this sets a precedence in terms of the changing of allowing old policy to still be in place depending on when somebody requests something, which is – generally has not been the case.

I believe there’s a very unique situation to this. It was part of a emergency action to close off a loophole. It was then part of a very rapid development of policy related to how to fix the problem so that we could open back up the waiting list.

And so this is a very unique point-in-time situation that I would urge the community to specify. This is not setting a precedent overall when it comes to old policy versus new policy in terms of that.

But otherwise I do support all of this. I think that, again, based on just getting the waiting list fixed, there was a determination at the time to work on this. And I would like to see it hopefully come to fruition soon. Otherwise, I’m not sure what the validity of those requests from years ago would be. Thank you.

Paul Andersen: Thank you. John Curran, did you want to respond to that? You have to unmute, John.

John Curran: I wanted to echo something that Kevin said that’s very important. It’s actually two unique circumstances here.

In general, when we change policy, requests that are made are made under the new policy once adopted. In the case of waitlists, you really have a case where people make a request under the existing waitlist policy. They’re put on the waitlist and then months or years can pass before they actually receive resources.

So, the first thing is that we have people who did qualify under a prior policy and it’s a long period of time. Even that, normally we promptly decide how to handle them when we change the waitlist. And we’ve changed the waitlist before and specified how to handle existing requesters.

In this case, the second aspect that makes it even more unique is those long-standing requests were suddenly put in a hold because of a Board action to suspend policy and then a very quick process to put a new policy in place.

So it’s a very unusual circumstance that we have people qualify under an old policy, have a new policy adopted in such quick timeframe that didn’t consider the transition aspects.

I don’t think this is precedential, but I agree with Kevin – we should be very clear that this is to handle a very unique circumstance and change, if people decide to proceed with it.

Paul Andersen: Okay. I’m actually going to wind down there, because we’ve actually come to our break, I believe. Or we – all right, correct. Okay.

So we’re going to ask those that have their hands up to keep them up during the break. We will let you all go stretch for 30 minutes, I believe. And we will return right where we left off, so everyone can get the sense of this. So, John, in the 20 seconds that we have left, I’ll leave you to throw it away.

John Curran: Okay. Thank you. Just want to let folks know that we are on break. We’ll come back and pick up right where we are. You have 30 minutes. We’ll see you back here at 1:20 PM Eastern Time. Thank you.

(Break)

John Curran: Okay, everyone. I’d like to welcome everyone back to our meeting. As we were leaving, we were mid-discussion of the Policy Proposal.

So, let’s continue with the questions. And I’ll turn it over to our chair, Paul Andersen, to moderate the discussion. Go ahead, Paul.

Paul Andersen: Thank you. So, yes, we’re in this Draft Policy still. We have a bunch of Q&As kind of queued up.

I’m going to ask if we can kind of hit someone specifically just because I know that we’ve tried to during the break get some of the data for them. So let’s start with Chris Woodfield, if we can.

Beverly Hicks: Sure. Chris Woodfield, Twitter, ARIN AC: Of the organizations that were kicked off the waiting list on the implementation of last year’s policy, how many were disqualified due to total holdings versus the wait, the size of their waitlisted request?

Paul Andersen: John Sweeting, I believe John was trying to get that data.

John Sweeting: I’m here. I just don’t have any video. So I’m going to give you four numbers here. There were 365 requests on the waitlist when the new policy was implemented.

Going through a process that we put together, 37 were removed because they had more than a /20. Of those, 13 have more than of a /18. 79 requests were adjusted down to a /22 because they were more than a /22. Of those 79, we updated tickets to all 79 of them to advise them of that and they all came back and said they still wanted the /22, and they all still got the /22. And then there was 249 requests that were unaffected.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, John. All right. Let’s take our next Q&A.

Beverly Hicks: Next Q&A, David Farmer, University of Minnesota: I support the intent of this policy. This is a policy matter. However, it seems to be modifying the implementation of ARIN 2019-16. I think the limit should be a /22. I support eliminating the /20 total for organizations on the waitlist prior to the implementation of ARIN 2019-16.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, David. We’ll take that support. Let’s take one more Q&A and then go to raised hands.

Beverly Hicks: Sure. Adam Thompson from MERLIN: I agree with the entire concept of retroactively grandfathering anyone back to – into the waitlist, unless they meet the new criteria. There’s legitimate fairness argument – there’s a legitimate fairness argument there. But the Board changed the policy for a reason. Why circumvent it?

Paul Andersen: Thank you. Let’s go to our hand raise. Again, please state your name and affiliation even though your name will be stated prior.

Beverly Hicks: Tina, you’re ready.

Tina Morris: Thank you. Tina Morris, Amazon Web Services, Advisory Council chair. I just wanted to add a couple of things for context.

First, I support this policy work. I think it’s important. In fact, I think it’s so important that when the Board asked us if we wanted to have a meeting or cancel a meeting I said – and I talked to the AC about this – we were all in consensus that this policy couldn’t wait until October to be discussed with the community.

We think this is super important. We don’t take lightly this policy change that we made. We really struggled with this choice and the limits we set. And I’m happy to revisit those.

However, we can’t forget a couple of things. For one, the waitlist was never guaranteed space. If you were planning your business on this space, you put together a very bad business plan. I’ve always been in support of the waitlist. I’m glad that space isn’t sitting there not being used. I’m glad it can be recycled and go to good.

However, there were bad actors. There were people waiting that year and cashing out on the space. But grandfathering requests back in, we will again enable that. I know that’s a cost of doing business. I accept that. That’s fine. But we need to realize that not everybody that was removed from this waitlist was a good business with little information and waiting for their space to grow their business.

There were some people on there purely getting space to sell it. And that’s what we were trying to block.

The AC has no intentions of doing this as a regular basis, and I really support the community discussing these changes. And we’ll make the changes that you want to implement. But I know that I’ve had people – I buy IP addresses for Amazon. I get – [dog barking] – sorry, puppy. I get people that approach me to sell space all the time. I had people specifically call out that they had to wait for the counter to run out on this so they can sell space to me.

I had that happen on more than one occasion. There are bad actors on this. We can’t block them all. We can’t exactly know what people are going to do with the space. So, I’m happy to revisit this. But we can’t treat it like everybody that was removed was a victim. That’s all I have to say. Thank you.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Tina. Thank you for those comments. Let’s go back to Q&A, and then we’ll go back to an attendee.

Beverly Hicks: Back to Q&A. Joseph Chambley from Ascension Technologies is curious: How many Orgs are impacted? I continue to support work and agree with the /22 limit.

Paul Andersen: Okay. Let’s go back to the attendees then.

Beverly Hicks: For the next hand, you mean?

Paul Andersen: Next hand, yes, thank you.

Beverly Hicks: Kevin Blumberg, you are able to speak.

Paul Andersen: Go ahead, Kevin. You’re muted, looks like.

As a reminder, when we let you speak, you still have to unmute yourself. There you go.

Kevin Blumberg: Kevin Blumberg, The Wire. Thank you. I appreciate what Tina’s saying, and I think it’s also important then to revisit that aspect in regards to the fraud component in making sure that people are not in that scenario.

Maybe fraud is the wrong word. People who are profiting from the old policy. So I do understand that and that definitely needs to be wrapped up into something.

A clarification, if the entity gets space under this, it is a five-year hold at that point for transfers; is that correct? And that’s a question for the AC.

Paul Andersen: You said for the AC, but – well, John Curran, or anybody on the AC would like to respond?

Kevin Blumberg: Anybody –

Tina Morris: I can speak on it. That’s a condition we added to try to deter the fraud. We thought that would be a heavy hand to prevent people from trying to flip space.

John Curran: Right. Just to be clear, as the policy was implemented, that was a requirement, the 60-month requirement. The max size issued was a requirement. And as John Sweeting said earlier, everyone who was waiting on the list was offered to have that.

Those two items alone deter fraud. The place where you couldn’t apply it and provide discretion, telling someone if you get the space you have to wait five years, they could say, oh, don’t bother giving it to me.

Telling them if you get the space you’re only going to get a /22, they could say it’s too small, it’s not worth it.

The place where we didn’t provide discretion – and yet there may have been parties waiting for some time – was in the total address holdings, because it’s not something someone can agree to comply with or ask to have their request removed. We, in fact, didn’t give anyone who had been waiting a choice because the AC’s new policy was quite clear that total holdings was a disqualification.

So there are multiple fraud protections that would still apply. The only real question was, at the point in time when this policy was written and adopted, what was the intent of handling those who were on the list and already had address holdings greater than the limit, was there an intent that some transition be provided or not?

There’s no record that says it was considered either way. And, hence, this policy is a worth while policy to discuss.

That doesn’t mean it should happen and it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t happen. But since we don’t have a record of specifically how to handle the people who have more address space and are already on the waitlist, it’s a worthwhile discussion.

Paul Andersen: Okay. We’re going to be closing the queues in one minute exactly. So please get your questions in or raise your hand. We’ll go to Andrew Dul next, please.

Andrew Dul: Andrew Dul, ARIN AC, 8 Continents Networks. I don’t support the policy as currently written. I think the AC did its job and found the line that we needed to. But unfortunately there will always be some organizations, when you have to draw a line, that will maybe not get exactly what they want.

So, I think we found a good line. I’m happy to discuss it. But I think that moving the line slightly back further to get a few people on the waitlist is the right decision.

Paul Andersen: Thirty seconds left until the queue closes. Can we go back to Q&A, please, and clear that up, please?

Beverly Hicks: Yes. I also have one more hand up as well.

Paul Andersen: I see that.

Beverly Hicks: No problem. Tom Pruitt, Stratus Networks: I support continued work on this. I would support no limit on both parts of the discussion, but can support having limits suggested.

Paul Andersen: The limit suggested, I believe, yeah. Okay. Thank you for that comment. Next Q&A.

Beverly Hicks: Mercia Arnold, Obsidian Group, Incorporated is in support of fairness for people who are delisted to be grandfathered with the new limits as proposed in the process.

Paul Andersen: Okay.

Beverly Hicks: In this process.

Paul Andersen: We’ve closed the queue. I believe we’ve got all our Q&A now. Is that correct?

Beverly Hicks: Correct.

Paul Andersen: And we have one last raised hand, so, could we go to the Q&A, please?

Beverly Hicks: R.S., you should be able to speak now.

Rob Seastrom: I apologize for making all the chatter on the other channels, I was concerned my hand was not showing.

Robert Seastrom, ARIN Advisory Council. John Curran and Kevin Blumberg both brought up important points of fairness. And I thank John Sweeting for bringing the data on who did what and what happened to certain organizations when the policy changed because it really informs my thinking on this.

I want to echo Tina’s point that the white list – my goodness – the waitlist was never guaranteed space. And further I want to underline that getting space with the intent of flipping it as soon as the timer ran out was also never the intent of the white list – waitlist.

When we talk about fairness, it’s important to not only consider those who are on the waitlist and are now removed because of total holdings. Also, those who are new on the waitlist for smaller amounts, and it’s really at their expense that we’re putting folks who, I’ll be a little uncharitable and say didn’t get lucky enough.

And it was – there’s 37 organizations, and I’m sorry that they were adversely affected, but sometimes policy changes. And I’m therefore not in favor of this Policy Proposal to undo that policy change as written. Thank you.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Rob. And with that I’ll leave Alyssa any closing comments from you?

Alyssa Moore: No, I think that’s great. Just that I’ll be poking PPML about this, too, and if you want to weigh in there and if you haven’t yet today, then please do.

Paul Andersen: Yes. Excellent point. Even though there will not be a poll, if you had a thought after this that you would like to add, you can either post to the PPML or the name of the shepherds are, such as Alyssa on this one, is on the website. And you can always reach out to the shepherds directly with any thoughts and questions you might have for one-on-one.

With that, I’ll thank Alyssa for her presentation and say farewell for now. And we’ll turn it over to Andrew Dul for our last policy of the day.

Andrew, take it away when you’re ready.

Draft Policy ARIN-2020-3: IPv6 Nano-Allocations

Andrew Dul: Always good to unmute yourself. All right, so, the first slide today is the problem statement. This is a v6 policy, so we get to discuss something exciting and different other than v4.

So the problem statement is that we currently have a group of organizations, they’re called 3x-Small ISPs. And they currently, based on the current fee structure, there’s a financial disincentive for them to receive IPv6.

Recently, there’s been about 30 organizations that have requested v6. And 24 have ended their request, presumably after they learned that their fees would increase from $250 to $500 per year.

And so we wanted to take a look at seeing if we should remove this fee disincentive through policy. Also note that another way to solve the problem is that the fee schedule itself could be changed.

Next slide, please. This is the fee schedule that we’re talking about. We’re talking about the organizations that are in the 3x-Small category here. Their current ISP fee is $250 per year. And as you can see that’s only a /24 or smaller IPv4 holdings.

But currently the smallest amount of space you can receive for IPv6 is a /36. So, if they receive a /36, they automatically move to the 2x-Small category, and therefore their fees end up being double.

So next slide, please. So this is the draft text of the text. The changed text is in red here, for those who have the color in front of them. So what we do here is we allow these small organizations to receive a /40, which would allow them to remain in the same category. And to receive a /40 we also have two requirements here: Hold your – only a /24 of IPv4 and you have to also have less than a /22.

All right. Next slide. There’s also a second section of this policy here which is added as letter (g) in 6.5.2. And this is a policy which basically creates a little bit of a reserve area for these organizations so that they can easily expand their allocation when they need to. And this expansion actually does cause a fee change.

So if they move from a /40 to a /36, or if their IPv4 holdings increase, their category automatically – sorry, their allocation automatically increases.

So next slide, please. This Policy Proposal or Draft Policy recently received staff and legal. It was posted, I believe, on the website about a week and a half before the meeting. And it had two points from staff for consideration.

The first one was a small change was suggested to the problem statement, with regard to how ARIN’s fees are implemented today. And this is just a minor text change to more accurately describe the fee schedule.

And the second was the references in the draft should be 6.5.2.1 instead of 6.5.2, just for clarity perspective of where the text should be inserted into the policy manual.

Next slide, please. All right. So our questions for today are, first of all, do you support continuing to work on this policy? Are there any issues with incorporating the suggested staff changes? I don’t think there are. And I will be happy to add those to the updated text following the meeting. So maybe the community would like to continue working on this.

And the final question is, are there any issues you think should be addressed in the text or should we just move forward with this?

And if other folks would like to comment on if we should solve this in policy versus encouraging the Board in some way to change the fee schedule, that might also be useful feedback to hear from the community.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Andrew. I’m going to actually put myself in first. And I see John has already jumped in second and we have some hands raised.

In general, if the community thinks that from a technical perspective it makes sense to allocate this size of block – and because there’s been reasons before why there was minimum allocations in the community – that’s fine.

If there’s concerns about fees, and this is just being done to – I’m not going to use the word “circumvent” – but try to encourage more adoption through that, the one thing I would say is the IPv6 fee schedule is interesting, to say the least. And yes, for the most part it doesn’t kick in people’s before holdings because v4, generally we had a lot more graduated allocation sizes that people end up.

But with IPv6 we have a slightly different problem. So I guess just my only warning is that if there’s strong support that the Board needs to lower the fees for a category, that can certainly be looked at.

I would just hesitate that that is likely only a short-term item. And as v4 starts to deplete and become the lesser of the two protocols, and the v6 starts to become more and more prevalent, which I think many in this community want to see and have done a lot of work towards, people need to understand that we’re still going to have to recover the costs that we have and we’ll need to account for that.

John, you looked also like you wanted to add something. So when you unmute, you will be able to speak.

John Curran: So, Paul, thank you. I’d like to just sort of elaborate a bit on what you said, because it is very important. We have a very unusual circumstance here as well. We have the intersection of the nature of ARIN’s fee schedule.

Unlike other organizations, ARIN’s fees are based on the total resources held. And we take the high watermark of your IPv6 holdings versus your IPv4. And that does allow something that’s actually pretty interesting. It means that organizations can add v6 generally without increasing their fees. And eventually it means when an organization with both don’t need v4, they can return v4. And if everyone did that ARIN’s revenues don’t drop in half.

So it provides a transition for people from IPv4 resources to comparably sized IPv6. And that way I think the fee schedules are a remarkable accomplishment.

We’ve actually adjusted the fee schedule in the past. When it was first being considered, people noted it didn’t provide enough IPv6 space. So we actually changed the alignment to be even more generous for amount of IPv6 resources.

But IPv6, unfortunately, the smallest IPv4 ISP, if they get the smallest amount of space allowed by our present IPv6 policy, is still getting a very large amount of IPv6 space – far more corresponding than necessarily you would expect compared to an ISP who just has one /24.

So that puts us in a circumstance where at the very bottom end, it is true that someone could change from one category to the other. I applaud the AC looking at this issue. I will note that changing the minimum allocation is one way of doing it, as Andrew said.

Another way of doing it would be to look at the fee schedule. But also they’re not exclusive. In other words, nothing prevents folks from considering lowering the size to provide a more modest v6 allocation.

Even if we do go look at whether we want to change one IPv6 fee category independently. There is some work on fees coming up with the Board this summer, and we’ll be consulting with the community on that. This is something that will be discussed.

But ultimately we also have to remember that changing the entire fee schedule to adjust for this one bridge condition is on a long-term basis probably isn’t the right move.

But looking at the minimum holding and/or looking at the fee schedule for one category is a reasonable thing to bring forth as a policy for discussion.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, John Curran. Let’s go to our Q&A first.

Beverly Hicks: Okay. I have Owen DeLong, Farsight Security, ARIN AC: Support as written. Would prefer that Board address this through fee realignment instead of creating IPv6 nano-allocations. But this is what we can do with policy to resolve the issue within the existing fee structure. More important to resolve the issue and get v6 deployed rather than to cling to optimal allocation strategy.

Paul Andersen: Okay. So in favor. Thank you, Owen. Next Q&A please.

Beverly Hicks: Brian Jones, Virginia Tech: I support the intent of this policy. I agree with David Farmer that the limit should be a /22. I am for removing impediments to v6 implementation, allocation, and deployment.

Paul Andersen: Thank you. Let’s go to our first raised hand, please.

Beverly Hicks: First raised hand, Chris Woodfield.

Paul Andersen: Name and affiliation, please.

Chris Woodfield: Chris Woodfield, ARIN Advisory Council and Twitter. I support work on this policy. But I have a question. As I’m an ARIN AC member but the policy being worked on pre-dates my tenure by quite a bit, so, I was curious where the current /40 minimum allocation came from and what was the mindset – I’m sorry, /36 allocation – came from and what was the mindset behind landing on a /36 in the current policy?

Paul Andersen: I’m going to ask that we unmute Rob Seastrom who is the next hand because we will go to – this is the institutional knowledge. I’m going to put him on the spot, see if he has anything to say.

Robert Seastrom: Yeah, thank you, Paul.

To Chris’ question, the original – original – pre-RIR vast deployment of IPv6 were in fact /36s and /35s. And I kind of feel like that number is there as a historical artifact that has been brought forward even as the /32 sort of default allocation has become institutionalized as the thing that you can just ask ARIN for and it will be pretty much handed over.

Do you have a further question there, Chris, before I go forward with the other stuff I was going to –

Paul Andersen: Chris, does that address your question?

Chris Woodfield: Yes, that answers my question. Thank you.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Chris. Rob, since you were so kind to go on the spot, why don’t we give you the floor then.

Rob, because I get letters, can I get the name and affiliation specifically now that you’re –

Robert Seastrom: Rob Seastrom, ARIN Advisory Council. In full disclosure, I was the author for this proposal. And this problem has been around for a while. There was another Policy Proposal in 2013 that attempted to address the same problem space. It didn’t get community support because of concerns about the unintended consequences incenting undersizing IPv6 allocations – which is a real problem. Our policy in v6 in general has evolved over time as we who eat, think and breathe this stuff get rid of IPv4 thinking as it relates to IPv6.

And, so, making sure that we don’t incent people to undersize IPv6 allocations, in the interest of conservation or not wasting, which is something you care about with v4 and you absolutely don’t with v6 because of the orders of magnitude larger size, I think that that goal is adequately addressed in the policy with the guardrails that we put in. But we’re all ears for further ideas on how to avoid this outcome.

So, Paul, to your point about the business issues involved with IPv6-only resource holders becoming a business problem regarding revenue streams, I’m eager for that day. And I hope to be part of discussion about how to address that problem.

But for the meantime, when we’re still having to make the curve go up, I’d like to point out that – what are the actual numbers here, three-quarters of triple X small organizations’ IPv6 allocation requests are being abandoned? That represents a very real problem, and I’m in favor of continuing to work on this Policy Proposal until we reach consensus. Thank you.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Rob. We have a lovely queue of Q&A. Why don’t we clear a few of them out. Let’s get the next one, please.

Beverly Hicks: Sure. Leo Vegoda, And Polus LLC: I’m uncomfortable with the Policy Development Process being used to address issues related to the fee recipient organizations’ need to pay ARIN. There’s no shortage of IPv6 address space and policies that incentivise the allocation of tiny blocks to ISPs – increase the risk that the ISP customers will be given really tiny assignments, especially in regions where there is very limited to no competition in the market.

Paul Andersen: Thank you for that comment. Next comment.

Beverly Hicks: Adam Thompson from MERLIN: I support this change as currently written. Minimum allocation size needs to be lowered anyway. This is a good justification to do it and does it elegantly.

Paul Andersen: One more from the Q&A, please.

Beverly Hicks: I’m going to – I have two from David Farmer. So I’m going to combine them.

Paul Andersen: Yep.

Beverly Hicks: David Farmer, University of Minnesota: I support this policy as written, continued work and the staff’s proposed changes. A /40 is minimally sufficient for an ISP and allocations of /40 should be allocated for 3x-Small ISPs. He also states that the current /36 was an adjustment to policy because of the previous fee structure.

Paul Andersen: Okay. Let’s go to a raised hand to give Beverly a little bit of a break.

Beverly Hicks: Kevin, you should be able to speak. State name and affiliation, please.

Kevin Blumberg: Thank you. Kevin Blumberg, The Wire. I have significant reservations about this policy. I believe that most of it can be handled through a fee change. Call it a initial ISP block fee for X number of years or whatever.

But the /36 has been discussed for years. It was /32 originally. We made it /36. And there was significant discussion to keep it at /36 as the bare minimum to prevent – or to prevent the incentivization of giving out tiny blocks.

There’s a second problem to all of this, which is what is the knock-on effect then with something like 4.10? Are we making it so easy; just call yourself an ISP to get v6 to then get a v4 block that that goes out the window?

So there’s not only this policy and what it’s trying to deal with. There’s also the knock-on effect of how this is going to affect other aspects of the NRPM that would need to be addressed.

I really believe that in good conscience, this is a fee change or a fee waiver or whatever the case may be that needs to be done, and that we’re making bad policy to try to get around that. Thank you.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Kevin, for that. We’re going to close the queues shortly because we’re hitting the end of the time we have allocated for this block. So we’ll go another 60 seconds to be opened. We have a lot of questions to get through. Yes, I see you, Mr. Curran.

So if you could either raise your hand, if you wish to speak, or put in a Q&A in the next minute, I appreciate it. Let’s start clearing some Q&A, please, Beverly.

Beverly Hicks: Aaron Hughes, 6connect: I’m not in support of further work on this proposal for all the reasons Paul and John mentioned. Also, not sure why an Org of that size would not just get v6 from their upstream’s ISPs, as renumbering is not a hurdle, in my honest opinion, at that size.

Paul Andersen: Thank you for that, Aaron. Next.

Beverly Hicks: Scott Morizot, Internal Revenue Service: I support as written and would equally support it addressing through a fee schedule.

Paul Andersen: Thank you for that, Scott. Next.

Beverly Hicks: Jonathan Stewart, LES.net: For small ISPs, $250 is a real monetary cost barrier for adopting IPv6. 3x-Small ISPs should be able to add IPv6 without additional cost. This proposal removes that barrier to IPv6 adoption. I’m in support.

Paul Andersen: Thank you. Next comment.

Beverly Hicks: Mercia Arnold, the Obsidian Group: Are there options for ARIN to include incubators or entrepreneurial efforts for small businesses to get IPv4 or IPv6 allocations early in the development process? For example, are there any data or evidence of the minimum viable product for allocations to launch an ISP or other mass consumer of IPv4 or IPv6 allocations?

Paul Andersen: I think we have two more. So next one, please.

Beverly Hicks: Alicia Trotman, ARIN AC, unaffiliated: I support the policy as written. Being from a small Caribbean island with very small markets, this will assist IPv6 adoption. At the very least it wouldn’t cause the fee to be a deterrent.

Paul Andersen: Thank you. And the last one is from Joe Provo, Google, ARIN AC: Support the continued work here to drive better v6 adoption.

Can we just clarify that – Kevin Blumberg, is your hand – is his hand still raised? I have John Curran in queue.

No. Okay. So, the queue is now closed and the Q&A, I believe John Curran has a question for Andrew Dul.

John Curran: Right. So, the question that comes up, and it sort of, one of the Q&A requesters brought this up is, it would be good for the community to understand when thinking about this Policy Proposal what the change between /40 and /36 would be.

Under current policy, an ISP who has a /24 of IPv4, gets a /36 if he asks for it, of IPv6. Under this policy change, he would be able to ask for /40; therefore, not changing his fee.

Can I ask the AC or the presenter: How many customers using IPv6 can an ISP support with a /36 versus how many customers is he able to support with a /40? That might be good information to help the community consider this.

Paul Andersen: Andrew Dul.

Andrew Dul: So, I think the number of customers one could support is dependent upon their end size allocation. So if you’re using one of the IETF recommendations of a /48 per customer, giving a /40 would be eight bits or 256 customers.

If you’re doing a /56, then you’re at 16 bits, or 65,000 customers. So, is that answering the question that I think you were asking, John?

John Curran: To be clear.

Paul Andersen: Owen has chimed in, saying a /36, in his view, is 4,000-plus customers, and /40 is, in his view, 200-plus customers.

John Curran: Right, I guess, there’s concerns that an ISP who has a /24 – the arguments against doing this, because it enables nano-allocations to an ISP – nano, being /40. So for the ISP who has a /24 of IPv4 space and only gets a /40 because they want to keep their fee low, they would be able to support at the IETF-recommended allocation per customer, 256 customers, which is similar to what they have with their IPv4 allocation. Is that correct?

Andrew Dul: That would be correct, assuming there’s no NAT involved. Of course, the smallest ISPs do use NAT on their customers.

John Curran: Sure. And similarly, presuming they use a /48 and not a /56 for their allocation. I guess I’m just trying to understand what sort of downpressure we’re providing. A /48 – while enabling an ISP to ask for a /48 does seem like we’re constraining them, I guess I wanted to characterize the constraint is not much more than they have currently on v4.

Andrew Dul: I would concur with that.

Paul Andersen: We’ll close the discussion except for – my apologies. I don’t know what’s going on, Robert Seastrom. You’re apparently raising and lowering your hands. It may not actually be being seen. My apologies. Because of that technical issue, Robert, do you want to interject something? Name and affiliation again.

Robert Seastrom: I was actually about to – I was dithering on whether to actually have my hand up. I wanted to – I concur with John and Andrew’s point that to a greater or lesser extent the constraint is similar if one avoids doing unholy things, whether it’s CGN or whether it’s smaller end-site allocations than we’d like to see.

I’d also like to underline, though, that if we go back to the actual policy space, it’s not merely – the policy language does not merely facilitate them getting more space in the contiguous block. That’s already possible should they need it. That’s already possible under ARIN’s sparse allocation back office processes to get more adjoining space.

What is the intent of the policy, and if it’s not reading that way, please someone from staff let me know, is that if they get a second /24, it immediately gets promoted to a double X rather than a triple X small and there’s no going back. It’s a one-way door.

Paul Andersen: All right. We’ll leave that as the last word, Robert. Thank you, Rob, for that interesting bit. And that will end this discussion period.

I thank Andrew Dul for the presentation, and we’re going to ask a poll question on this.

I have verified the poll question this time so as not to get myself into trouble. So the community is about to be asked whether or not you wish to continue working on the Draft Policy. So I’d ask you either to say yes or no to the poll question that’s in front of you. Use the Q&A.

If you are having a problem with that and if you are a panelist, please raise your hand if you’d like to speak something on it for the record.

Unfortunately, we have to work through a few Zoom technicalities to move this. We have about 20 seconds.

I note that Celeste Anderson has put in a Q&A. Unfortunately we already closed our Q&A period. But I’ll make sure it’s passed on to the Advisory Council.

Let’s close off the poll and give a second to tally results.

Beverly Hicks: At the close of the poll we had 100 attendees; 33 voted yes and 15 no.

Paul Andersen: This feedback will be provided to the AC for their input. This ends our policy discussion for this ARIN 45 Virtual Meeting.

I’d like to thank you all as the community for indulging us in this new process. And, again, my thanks to the many tireless staff and the Advisory Council that worked to try and shoehorn a process that I know many of us have been used to for many years into a virtual format in a short time order.

We have three presentations coming up from your Board that are all going to be very quick, including – you get a doubleheader from Nancy Carter, our Treasurer and Chair of the Board Governance Working Group. We’ll turn it over to Nancy to give us a quick update.

Governance Working Group Update

Nancy Carter: Thank you, Paul. I just want to say that ARIN 45’s virtual format has been far more interactive than I could have imagined. And I really want to congratulate the entire team for putting it together. It’s been really great.

As you will have noticed, the ARIN Board of Trustees established a Board Governance Working Group at the beginning of this year because we have been listening to the community.

The purpose of the Governance Working Group – thank you – is to perform an overall review of the governance mechanisms of ARIN to determine their suitability and identify any changes to meet the long-term needs of the organization. Mechanisms such as the Board composition, Board selection, and Board effectiveness will all be reviewed.

If you’re interested, the charter for the working group is available on ARIN’s website, and I encourage you to have a look. The working group includes three members of the Board of Trustees: Peter Harrison, Catherine Middleton, and me. Deputy General Counsel Michael Abejuela serves as the staff advisor and facilitator.

Our objective is to undertake an independent governance review, something we identified as a best practice. To do that, we issued an RFP for services on the 1st of June, and the closing date was two days ago, Monday, June 15th. We were pleased to receive responses from more than 50 percent of the firms and consultants that we solicited.

So the Governance Working Group will review the proposal and select a consultant within the next two weeks, and the resulting work will occur over the remainder of the year. We will work with the chosen firm to identify options and opportunities to improve ARIN’s Board governance structure.

While I expect to update you on our progress again at ARIN 46, in the meantime, we’re going to work with staff to determine appropriate deliverables to allow for both general and bylaw community consultation as appropriate throughout the entire process.

That’s my update. I’m happy to answer any questions if there are any.

Paul Andersen: Any questions, comments for Nancy or the Board on this?

The good news is we have an open microphone after these two presentations so you don’t lose your opportunity. So you can definitely bring that up during Q&A.

Seeing no burning questions, Nancy, why don’t we continue on, and worst is we’ll pick it up in open microphone.

Nancy is going to move on to the next presentation, finances.

Treasurer’s Report

Nancy Carter: I’ll switch modes now, put my Treasurer’s hat back on.

I’m happy to present the ARIN treasure’s report virtually. And I’m pretty sure that this is the reason you’ve all stayed on the webinar for as long as you have.

I’ve been helped enormously by ARIN’s staff and my colleagues on the Board of Trustees in my role as Treasurer. And I really want to take this opportunity to thank the Financial Services Department for their continued dedication to evolving financial reporting and metrics as the Board relies on so heavily. This presentation that you will see is an example of that dedication.

We have a new CFO at ARIN, Brian Kirk, and he and the rest of the Financial Services Department are responsible for several commendable initiatives this year.

I’m going to update you on the Finance Committee and some changes in its scope since we last met, after which I’m going to review the 2019 financial results. I’ll present the 2020 Q1 results and provide highlights of the investment portfolio, including late-breaking news, and then finally look at customer growth.

The Finance Committee has been busy since we met in October. ARIN staff worked diligently last fall in collaboration with the Finance Committee to develop the 2020-2021 budget, which was then approved by the Board.

In January, we merged the Finance Committee and the Audit Committee into one committee. This means that the Finance Committee now oversees the financial audit and maintains a relationship with the audit firm, in addition to the other responsibilities that we had.

Finance Committee reviewed the financial statements for 2019 and recommended Board approval. Over the last few months, we’ve been monitoring revenues to ensure that there’s no negative impacts on cash flow as a result of the pandemic.

And finally we continue to monitor the investment portfolio for compliance with the investment policy statement and make adjustments required in consultation with our investment consultant.

And we’re currently in the midst of an update to the investment policy statement. ARIN has an annual financial audit performed by an independent outside firm to fulfill the Board’s fiduciary responsibility to our community.

The 2019 financial statements are now available on the ARIN website. Please have a look. I’m delighted to report that we had a clean audit with no recommendations to management. This is always a good thing.

The audited financial statements include an accounting standard change in the way that the organization recognizes revenues. ARIN is now ASC 606 compliant which is exciting accounting speak. And thanks to the significant efforts of the finance team, which the auditor acknowledged specifically in their report to the Finance Committee.

The 2019 financial results are in front of you. Registration revenue came in slightly under budget. And our operating expenses were approximately 5 percent under budget. The operating loss was half of what we had budgeted for 2019 and half of what we experienced in 2018.

Our investment income was significantly higher than budgeted. And the investment income of $4.2 million helped to absorb the impact of the 2019 adjustment on financial results. This is a timing adjustment only and affects when revenues are recognized.

So, rather than a budgeted $800,000 decrease in net assets for 2019, net assets actually increased by $1.4 million, a significant increase from the 2018 result.

Details of our revenue for 2019 show a 3 percent increase over 2018. The increase is a direct result of the fee increase that was implemented in July last year.

The accounting adjustment in 2019 meant that our registration maintenance fees are slightly under the budgeted $18.6 million.

In response to a comment at ARIN 44, we refrained from eye charts in the treasurer’s presentation this time.

The operating expenses in 2019 were 3 percent less than 2018. This is explained by changes in a number of our expense categories. A staff reduction at the end of 2018 accounted for 6 percent reduction in salary and benefits cost. Travel costs were reduced as a result of conscious efforts to manage travel budgets.

Legal fees were also lower in 2019. Increases in consulting, professional fees, outreach and public relations offset some of those reductions.

Operating expenses in 2019 were 5 percent less than budgeted. In October, I told you that we were 5 percent underspent on our operating expenses and we expected that trend to continue to the end of the year and it did.

The biggest factors in the actual versus budget variances are quite similar to our year-over-year variances. A number of fringe benefits were underutilized in the year. Travel was reduced and managed conservatively. Consulting and professional fees were impacted as were outreach and public relations.

The net asset balance increased by approximately $1.4 million at the end of 2019, as I mentioned earlier. The resulting $28.8 million in net assets is a significant component of ARIN’s statement of financial position or balance sheet presentation.

Net assets as a percentage of expenses is a new metric that we presented at ARIN 44. And it’s a metric that can be used to demonstrate the financial health of a not-for-profit organization. At the end of 2019, ARIN’s net assets were sufficient to cover 16 months of operating expenses. This is an increase over 2018 and is positive.

Finally, the 2020 Q1 results. Revenues are 5 percent under budget and not really achieving the budgeted growth as of March 31st. Fortunately, however, we’ve not experienced any material negative effect on revenues and cash flow because of COVID-19, and this is something that the Finance Committee and the financial services department is monitoring closely.

Operating expenses are 3 percent under budget, due to reduced travel and meeting costs. We experienced investment losses due to the COVID-19 impact on financial markets. And at March 31st, that investment loss was just over $4 million due to the market corrections in both the US and Canada.

ARIN’s investment portfolio is allocated into three distinct funds, each with different investment objectives. The chart in front of you illustrates the investment portfolio balances over the 17 months. The operating reserve and legal reserve have not experienced any material changes.

The long-term reserve is where all the volatility has happened. You’ll note that we’ve subsequently experienced recovery to the March market corrections. At the end of May the long-term reserve fund had recovered significantly, bringing total investments to $28.6 million.

Today, the portfolio balance is $29.2 million, bringing us within 3 percent of the December 31st balance. As the CFO noted this morning, this is almost a full recovery.

The Finance Committee and ARIN staff continue to work very closely with ARIN’s investment consultants to manage these investments.

On this last slide you see customer growth since 2016. Over the past four and a half years, you can see that the material growth continues to be in the small categories. The overall customer growth is 15 percent since 2016.

That brings me to the end of my presentation, and I’m happy to answer any questions.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Nancy, for that presentation, being the second treasurer to have to report through one of those big U’s in the plans – Scott Bradner, I think, being the last. Any questions for Nancy on this presentation?

Beverly Hicks: Not at the moment.

Paul Andersen: So no fret. I’m going to keep trucking just because – I’m going to keep trucking just because I don’t have a very long presentation. And then we can take questions on any of the presentations that you just saw as part of our open mic.

So I’m going to give a very abbreviated Board of Trustees Report.

Board of Trustees Report

Paul Andersen: Next slide, please. So what have we been up to? It’s been very challenging times. And my thanks first to my Board colleagues who are all here now on the virtual stage who have been helping the Board pilot through interesting times, from asking us to declare an emergency situation to allow us to rejig the policy process, working with the management and staff to understand operations and obviously produce this meeting.

And secondly, of course, thanks to the world-class staff who – normally I would say are at Chantilly world headquarters, but they have not been per that, so they’re scattered between the Northern Virginia and surrounding area, who have been doing a world-class job, making sure that you, the customer and community member, have, I’m sure, barely noticed a snip just in our day-to-day registration operations and also ensuring that major projects otherwise move forward.

It has been intriguing again. I think John Curran would be the first to say we’ve learned a lot and luckily not in a way that has any detriment to the organization, and quickly found out all kinds of interesting bits where human, post-human interaction is desired or even required as part of what ARIN does.

We’ve been quick to pivot, and that’s with everything, from virtual meetings to elections to just staff processes to – on the operations.

Getting past the COVID-19, we’ve been focusing a lot. It started with our strategy planning which began some time ago which I’ll get into, to just trying to get help understanding, get a baseline level of what is the healthy organization look like and from that.

And that’s hit a lot of facets. One of the areas we’ve done, and the staff has worked very closely with us is getting an understanding what the technical debt of the organization is and how we can, what level of technical debt is acceptable on an ongoing basis and how we can remediate those that aren’t currently there.

That’s produced all kinds of great exercises including getting a real understanding of the complexity of ARIN operations. And my hope is that part of that can be – we’ve had some internal documentation on that, and I’m hoping that we can translate that into the ever-illusive services document.

But I can assure you, after seeing it, it’s amazing the scale of which things that ARIN does that you may not even imagine and have to maintain. So we continue to work with them on that.

I think Nancy’s already covered a lot of the investment information. We’re happy that obviously we were not stuck in a position that we need to liquidate our holdings and we’re able to ride that. And also on the Governance Working Group.

Next slide, please. One of the immediate challenges, just procedurally, is we like to generally have an in-person strategy, meeting typically around August. We have not yet canceled it outright, but it’s certainly under suspect. So we are reworking what we had just approved last year as a new strategic process to work in a more virtual environment.

And of course it takes a little bit of adaptation. Locking yourself in a boardroom for two days has a different impact than locking yourself in a Zoom meeting. We’re going to be adjusting that process to ensure that it’s effective.

We hope, as you may be aware, but for those we actually approved in January the strategic plan that we spent most of last year approving. That’s a three-year plan at a high level.

Our hope is to go in-depth this year with some of those pillars and use the off years not to obviously keep reinventing a three-year plan, but to continue to run with that, but to help flush out some of those objectives.

And part of that, too, is that COVID-19 has really raised a lot of strategic questions that have always been on the roadmap. But some had to get answered very quickly, and it’s just raised – brought those to the forefront.

Next slide, please. In terms of elections, we had initially planned in January to start them earlier. We had hoped to make some fanfare around the April meeting. That, of course – best intentions. And so nominations have now closed. The Nomination Committee, headed by Catherine Middleton, is now well underway. The Board continued to send a guidance letter, which I’d encourage anyone interested to read. We do make that public.

As I stated yesterday, those that also have their thoughts are happy to send to the Nomination Committee.

One other change we made this year is that we’ve involved a third-party professional independent to interview each Board candidate that makes it to the last rounds of the process to just provide an independent view of that candidate’s qualifications.

And again there’s an option that there may be a second call at the July meeting. So that’s elections.

Moving on to my last point and my last slide, please. From the “better late than never,” I’d like to extend my thanks to Jason Schiller who has been a long-term friend of mine throughout – and long-time community member – he’s not been able to, due to just changes in work and such – be as involved in the community. But he was our NRO NC representative for many years. He stepped down last year.

And normally I would do this in October, so I’d like to personally apologize to Jason. I had a hectic travel schedule in October. And it’s no excuse. And when we did our thank-yous in October I, through error, neglected to thank him and forgot that. So, Jason, my apologies.

Normally this would be the point in our in-person meeting, I’d ask you all to show your support and clap, so that I know that I could hear – even though you’re all on mute – the thunderous applause. And I’d just like to thank you again, Jason, and hope you continue to be involved in the community for many years to come. And thank you for your service. And I see thunderous claps in the chat and I thank you for that.

That’s my report. I’ll throw it immediately open to open microphone.

Public Policy Meeting, Day 2 - Open Microphone

Paul Andersen: We have our President and CEO here. We have our Board here. And we have our Advisory Council Chair here. Please feel free to raise any questions, either on the reports you just saw, on a general question for the organization you have, even just a policy question is fine, understanding that there’s a proper process to go in there.

So we open it up. I see we have our first Q&A.

Beverly Hicks: Aaron Hughes from 6connect: Why is there a NomCom controlling the election ballot rather than having anyone able to be on the Board election ballot? Also, if there really has to be a NomCom, why do Board members sit on it? I do not believe that there’s a need for a NomCom and would like to see either complete transparency or its dissolution.

Paul Andersen: Thank you, Aaron, for your comment. So, the one thing I would address that is there’s a bit of a parallel process on that right now. We’ve made a decision to stay with the current framework. That framework does have a Nomination Committee that tries to balance not just individual candidates but also find the skills and to find the diversification of skills, background and experiences. And that’s their job to try and find a slate of qualified candidates.

As for Board members, that’s generally, in fact – many Board nomination committees, the entire nomination of Boards – but I think we for many years decided to have it, so that the plurality of them is members of the community and not Board members.

Having said that, it’s great timing for that input because the Governance Working Group has been told to look not just at other I* (I star) organizations, but one of the reasons we brought in a third party is just how can we potentially raise our governance and see what other best practices are occurring and what kind of selection processes would make sense to make sure that we continue to have an open process, but at the same time ensure that we get – as a Board – the diversity of skills, backgrounds, and geographic, among other diverse skills that really help the Board achieve a higher efficiency in the last year.

So, I will take that feedback and pass it on to our Governance Working Chair. And obviously you or anyone are welcome to contact directly with your comments.

Next question, please.

Beverly Hicks: Matt Connor: Do you have any details on the positions of the investments in the ARIN portfolio?

And I’m sorry, I don’t have an affiliation for that one.

Paul Andersen: Matt, we do not – we have an investment policy document, which is currently under review. We do not – which gives you the asset classes that we are – I’m sorry, actually I will turn this over – I apologize. Nancy, you’re on the call. Would you like to address this?

Nancy Carter: Sure. I’ll just sort of pick up where you left off. We have an investment policy statement that details how each of the investment portfolios can be invested. And those are managed quite strictly by the investment consultant and monitored by the Finance Committee. So I’m not sure if that answers the question.

Paul Andersen: Our individual investments are not published. We could certainly take that under advisement. I don’t think, unless John wants to weigh in, there’s a little bit of that the way it’s always been. And we could certainly consider if that transparency was required. Just noting that it does, the individual ones do change fairly frequently with that.

John.

John Curran: Just to comment a bit. So we do have an investment policy that I put the link in the chat for people who are interested in it. If there’s a need to talk about individual positions, we would definitely want to have a discussion about the pros and cons of that.

So I am out of – if you’re looking for what’s the general range of how it’s managed, the staff and the Finance Committee provide oversight to our investment consultant per the guidance there. And you can see what types of investments that there are depending on how quickly we might need to have it.

If you’re asking for more specifics, come back with a specific question. I’d like to understand why, if you’re looking for a particular investment recommendation.

Paul Andersen: We can leave it at that. Matt, look at the document. If you’re looking for more detail, jcurran@arin.net. He’ll be happy to take the feedback.

I see one hand raised. Let’s go to the hand raise. Name and affiliation as always, sir.

Beverly Hicks: Rob, you should be able to talk now.

Robert Seastrom: Thank you. Rob Seastrom, ARIN AC. I’d like to know what guidance if any the Board has given or plans to give to the NomCom regarding candidate selection for the Board and AC positions. And has the Governance Working Group taken up the issue of issuing candidate selection guidance and whether it is proper in the future?

I ask these questions because the guidance given in 2019 seemed rather constricting and resulted in the disqualification at the NomCom stage of at least two otherwise qualified nominees for the Board slate.

Paul Andersen: Two questions there. I’ll take the second one.

I would say yes, all of that is in scope. And we look forward to community feedback on that in terms of the Governance Working Group. They have been given a very wide mandate and wide scope in that regard.

The only thing I would flag a bit is that the Advisory Council specifically have not at this point, I think, been put in scope, just to try to keep some manageability.

I think depending on how the GWG goes we’d probably then reach out to the Advisory Council to see if similar work needs to be done from that standpoint as well. Not to – and that was just simply a matter of trying to make it a manageable function, not that there was anything to that. So I put that.

And similarly, last year, there’s no current guidance on the Advisory Council side. I don’t think the Board would be looking to give said guidance. If the Advisory Council wanted to give said guidance, that would be a matter we would consider.

The guidance we gave last year is slightly changed this year and is published in the chat right now. And we have made it fairly clear at least our intent has been that whatever guidance we provide to the Nomination Committee, we do that openly.

So we have been writing that letter to the Nomination Committee Chair, cc: you, the community. And we always welcome feedback on that. So thank you for your question.

Looking for other questions or comments. Or if any of my other Board want to chime in, please feel free. That’s why we put them all on the table. It’s a little harder than usual. Normally you can just look around and see who might want to speak.

Give it a few more seconds here if people want to ask questions. Otherwise we hopefully can return half an hour to your day.

So, Cathy Aronson has asked – Cathy Aronson, no affiliation – how do we give feedback to the committee? I have feedback about nominations for the Board.

You can contact the Nomination Committee chair. It occurs to me that’s Catherine Middleton. Her ARIN address is on the website under the Board section. But as always you can always send info@arin.net, and they’ll, of course, direct it. I always fall back on that. But please just send anything you wish to Catherine and she will take it from there.

Waiting for any other questions or comments. So I’ll do a last little thank you and then if there’s no questions we’ll close it off just to be parallel.

I would just like to thank everyone who was involved in putting together ARIN 45. Hollis Kara recently took over in the position after the retirement of Susan Hamlin after many years. And I’m sure she was looking forward to running ARIN 45 as a standard meeting. And then of course this got thrown. I know her and the entire ARIN staff team – her team and many of the other teams – have worked many hours since the Board moved this to a virtual meeting and all seem to be thriving.

And I think it was always safe to say we were hesitant to see how this would go from a participation – I know much of my chat with many colleagues has been we’re all pleasantly surprised at the engagement in this meeting and the feedback. So it’s really good to see that this – many I’m sure in your businesses have seen situations turn up – things that you thought of for many years trying into a reality very quickly.

I, again, would ask everyone to show their appreciation to the entire ARIN staff who, in challenging circumstances, have pulled this off. They’re all – most, almost all remote today, praying their individual ISPs don’t kick them out. And we’ve, knock on wood, had very good luck on that.

Thank you, Owen DeLong, for the kudos in the Q&A.

Seeing no other hand raises, questions, or comments that I’ve missed, I am going to sign off and hand it over to John to close out the meeting. Thank you.

Public Policy Meeting, Day 2 - Closing Announcements and Adjournment

John Curran: Thank you, Paul.

And I would just like to say, as Paul said, thank you everyone for coming to our ARIN 45 Virtual Meeting. I think it’s been very successful. Hopefully you found it the same.

You will be getting a meeting survey link. Please feel it out. We do have a raffle associated. But more importantly, it helps us improve what we’re doing.

We’re going to have a full summary of the meeting online. Usually takes about a week or so to prepare. And so look forward to that on the website.

That’s it. I hope this has been successful and helpful for everyone. Have a wonderful day. You’ll hear news about ARIN 46 shortly. We should have an announcement early in the first week of July or so on whether or not we’re going to Seattle or whether it will be remote. If it’s remote, I think we’ve proven that the model works.

So one way or another, look forward to speaking to you all again in October. Thank you.

Paul Andersen: Thank you. Bye.

(Meeting adjourned at 2:32 PM.)