Summary

Imagine taking a number at a crowded counter, waiting patiently, then discovering that a rule change has made your number vanish. In 2019, ARIN changed who could receive scarce IPv4 addresses from its waiting list. The new cap was /22 per distribution, and organizations holding more than a /20 no longer qualified. The rule applied to applicants already in line. Some approved requests therefore disappeared when ARIN reopened issuance.

That decision had a reason. ARIN-2019-16 followed a suspension of waiting-list issuance and tightened access through an expedited policy action. The staff assessment anticipated an audit and removal of existing applicants above /20. The urgency also left little time for a slower question: how should the new rule treat organizations that joined under the old one?

The 2020 repair drew a narrow circle. A previously removed organization with total IPv4 holdings of /18 or less could return to its old position. It could receive no more than a /22 from the list. Its two-year approval gained time for the period lost between July 2019 and implementation; a request fulfilled through the transfer market came off the list. A /18 holding was an eligibility ceiling for this restored group, not the size of the prize at the counter.

Nikolich and Alyssa Moore were the two named shepherds. Their work had to move through a split Advisory Council. After last call, the Council could not agree to recommend the policy at either of its next meetings. Sixty days passed. The community then had five days to collect a petition with support from at least 25 people at 25 organizations. It succeeded. ARIN’s petition notice supplies those numbers; the Board announcement says no earlier policy had reached the Board by that route.

The special Board meeting kept the disagreement in plain view. Vice Chair Kat Hunter said the community and Council were divided. Chair Leif Sawyer worried about where any fair cutoff could be drawn. Tina Morris, who had chaired the Council during the policy’s development, said the 2019 rule knowingly removed some legitimate applicants and opposed a short-lived remedy for a small group. She abstained from the Board vote. Six trustees voted to adopt. The policy record dates implementation to 16 March 2021.

The queue could remember its earlier applicants because the policy drew boundaries around that memory. Nikolich’s documented role was to shepherd the proposal with Moore; the official record does not make her the petitioner. Their policy provided a route back for a defined group, while the petition provided a route around institutional deadlock. The most interesting number in the story may be neither /18 nor /22. It may be 25: the number of organizations needed to make the Board look at a lost place in line.