Presentation by Tomohiro Fujisaki at APNIC 44 on Wednesday, 13 September 2017

1. prop-116:
Prohibit to transfer IPv4
addresses in the final /8 block
Tomohiro Fujisaki
Wednesday, 13 September 2017

2. Objective of this proposal
• Keeping distribution from 103/8 block to be consistent with
its original purpose
– 103/8 pool is for distribution for new entrants to the industry.
• Avoiding 103/8 blocks to be consumed for transfer purpose.
Original motivation to propose this was to find some 103/8
bock transferred outside APNIC.
As of 10 September 2017, nine 103/8 was to ARIN and 5 to RIPE.

3. Problem statement
There are a lot of transfers of IPv4 address blocks
from 103/8 happening, both within the APNIC region
and among RIRs.
– Then number of transfer from 103/8 block are about 352 (as of 10
Sep. 2017), which is about 14% of the total number of transfers.
– Based on the information provided by APNIC secretariat, number of
transfers from the 103/8 block are increasing year by year.
3

4. 0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
103 202 203 43 27 183 192 59 111 182 160 180 157 124 45 150 119 153 110 49 170 144
Top 20 number of transfers in /8 blocks
4
# of transfers
Produced from ftp://ftp.apnic.net/public/transfers/apnic/transfer-apnic-latest on 10 Sep. 2017
103/8 is 14% of the total (12% at APNIC42)

5. Transfer statistics
5
Year Total Transfers Number of /24s
2011 3 12
2012 10 46
2013 18 66
2014 126 498
2015 147 573
2016 63 239
2017 45 278
Year Total Transfers Number of /24s
2011 2 2
2012 21 68
2013 16 61
2014 25 95
2015 67 266
2016 103 394
2017 70 288
1) M&A transfers containing 103/8 space
2) Market transfers containing 103/8 space
Provided by APNIC Secretariat on August 2017
0
100
200
300
400
500
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Marcket Transfers
Total # of /24s
0
200
400
600
800
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
M&A Transfers
Total # of /24a

6. Problem statement (cont.)
• Transfers from the 103/8 block include:
– Take place within 1 year of distribution, or
– Multiple blocks to a single organization in case of beyond 1 year.
• There is a case where a single organization have received 12 blocks transfers from 103 range.
– see: https://www.apnic.net/transfer-resources/transfer-logs
• It is quite likely that substantial number of 103/8 blocks are being used for transfer
purpose. This conflicts with the concept of distribution of 103/8 block (prop-062),
which is intended to accommodate minimum IPv4 address blocks for new comers.
– prop-062: Use of final /8
https://www.apnic.net/policy/proposals/prop-062
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7. Objective of policy change
When stated problem is solved, distribution from 103/8 block will be
consistent with its original purpose, for distribution for new entrants to
the industry. Without the policy change, substantial portion of 103/8
blocks will be consumed for transfer purpose.

8. Proposed policy solution
Prohibit transfer IPv4 addresses under final /8 address block
(103/8) which have not passed two years after its
allocation/assignment. If the address block allocated to a LIR in two
years is not needed anymore, it must return to APNIC to allocate to
another organization using final /8 policy. This two years
requirement will apply both market and M&A transfers.
This restriction will end when final /8 address block (103/8) run out.

9. Situation in other regions
• "RIPE Resource Transfer Policies" says:
– 2.2 Transfer Restrictions
Scarce resources, which are understood as those resources that are
allocated or assigned by the RIPE NCC on a restricted basis (such as IPv4 or
16-bit ASNs), cannot be transferred for 24 months from the date the resource
was received by the resource holder. This restriction also applies if the
resource was received due to a change in the organization's business (such
as a merger or acquisition).
http://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/transfer-policies

10. Advantages / Disadvantages
• Advantages
– It makes 103/8 blocks available according to the original purpose, as
distribution for new entrants (rather than being consumed for transfer
purpose)
– IPv4 addresses under final /8 are not transferred to outside APNIC.
– By prohibiting transferit is possible to keep one /22 for each LIRs
state, which is fair for all LIRs.
• Disadvantages
– None.
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11. Impact on APNIC/LIR
• LIRs cannot transfer address blocks under 103/8 within two
years. No big impact while they use it.
• Organizations which needs to receive transferred IPv4 can
continue to do so, outside 103/8 blocks (which should be
made available for new entrants)

12. Opinions on sig-policy ML
• After previous meeting
– Supportive: 5 (3 suggest M&A should be an exception)
– Non-supportive: 1
• Opinions
– Treat M&A transfer as exception
• Special treatment for M&A transfer will be loophole. This version omit that.
– Already have one year prohibition
• This is not a policy now.
– due to the current policy is only accept the owner to transfer to the new
owner after 1 year membership, that`s mean people cannot just open a
new account and sell it at the same time.
• This policy proposal try to prohibit such kind of address acquisition.
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13. Summary
• Propose to prohibit transfer IPv4 address under /8 address
block (103/8) which have not passed two years after its
allocation/assignment.
• Distribution from 103/8 block will be consistent with its
original purpose:
– Distribution for new entrants to the industry.

14. Questions?