Summary

  • APNIC's 2015 ASN test could ask a network to bring two upstream relationships and a distinct routing policy before it had the number used to organise its routing identity. Aftab Siddiqui and Skeeve Stevens proposed another sequence.
  • Their prop-114 admitted existing provider-independent address holders who intended to multihome alongside networks already multihomed. The proposal missed consensus at APNIC 39, passed at APNIC 40 and took effect in February 2016.
  • APNIC's 2019 prop-128 later broadened the test to a need to interconnect. The current rule belongs to that later decision; Siddiqui's contribution was the earlier opening in the queue.

The job interview that wanted prior experience

Imagine being asked for two upstream connections before receiving the network identifier that helps you arrange those connections. That was the awkward order Aftab Siddiqui and Skeeve Stevens found in APNIC's ASN eligibility wording. In their final prop-114, they said applicants read the old conditions as simultaneous demands: already multihomed and equipped with one clearly defined routing policy different from their providers'. Some networks supplied bad information; others stayed away though they had a valid use case. The policy looked like a job interview asking for experience in the position it had yet to offer.

Siddiqui worked in network operations and later served in APNIC community roles, according to his named APNIC biography. The proposal he wrote with Stevens made a careful edit. An organisation could qualify if it was already multihomed, or if it held provider-independent addresses and intended to multihome. That second path changed the order: establish an address identity, obtain the ASN, then put the planned interconnections into service. APNIC still assessed requests against RFC 1930 guidance. The new route had conditions, and a practical reason to use the number.

One application, two pieces of network identity

The first try at APNIC 39 in March 2015 failed to reach consensus. The same final version passed the Policy SIG and members at APNIC 40 in September, APNIC's proposal history records. After executive endorsement, implementation arrived on 10 February 2016. The companion prop-113 relaxed the IPv4 side of the process. APNIC's implementation account explains the combined effect: a new member could seek provider-independent IPv4 addresses and an ASN in the same application, intending to multihome later. Hostmasters also treated PI space from another RIR or an historical delegation as eligible for the ASN route.

That rule had its own expiry date. Jordi Palet Martínez's separate prop-128, implemented in July 2019, moved APNIC beyond the specific PI-space path. The current policy in section 10.1 allows present multihoming or a need to interconnect with another AS, including a near-term plan that the applicant can demonstrate. Siddiqui did not write that later proposal. He helped break the earlier circular demand, one applicant and one order of operations at a time.

Original records