Summary

  • At ARIN X in October 2002, Bill Darte helped moderate three proposals to lower the IPv4 minimum. A general change drew 33 supporters and 38 opponents; the room split differently when asked about assignments and allocations separately.
  • Darte later worked on language allowing justified multihomed organizations a direct ARIN /22. He proposed two consecutive six-month checks of requests and route-table impact before considering /23 and then /24. ARIN adopted the /22 route in December 2003 and implemented it in May 2004; the assessment ladder was not in the final policy text.

Small networks wanted their own IPv4 space without pretending to be large ones. At ARIN X in October 2002, Bill Darte and Alec Peterson moderated three proposals about lowering minimum block sizes. The case for change was tangible: multihoming meant two providers, but relying on one provider’s addresses weakened independence. The objection was equally tangible: smaller prefixes could multiply the routes that the rest of the Internet carried.

The room did not hand the moderators a clean mandate. Asked whether to change the minimum allocation or assignment size at all, 33 said yes and 38 no. Asked separately about the minimum assignment size, 39 favoured change and 23 opposed it. On the minimum allocation size, only 13 favoured change against 48 opposed. One person supported a /24 allocation minimum; none supported a /24 assignment minimum in those specific questions. Each tally answered a different question. Treating the 39 as a vote to approve /24 would make the record say the opposite of what it says.

The original 2002-3 proposal had offered qualifying multihomed networks justified space from /21 down to /24, with non-portable space returned within three months. The Advisory Council’s July 2003 record then identified Darte as working on revised language. His version drew a harder first line: a multihomed end user with an ARIN ASN could seek a /22 from a reserved block; an ordinary non-multihomed end user stayed at /20. Council colleagues wanted more justification than multihoming plus an ASN alone, and sent the matter back for another public meeting.

Darte also proposed a way to earn the next step. Count requests and examine route-table impact across two consecutive six-month periods. If the result was acceptable, consider /23; repeat before /24. Check after twelve months whether recipients were still multihomed. That was an opinion and plan of action in the council record, not an automatic shrinking rule. It changed the argument from “do small networks deserve addresses?” to “what would the Internet have to observe before issuing smaller ones?”

The board adopted Policy 2002-3 unanimously on 22 December 2003. ARIN’s final policy history says implementation followed on 18 May 2004. Qualifying multihomed organizations could justify direct space as small as /22; blocks longer than /20 came from a reserved range. The displayed final rule contains neither Darte’s two-period monitoring plan nor an automatic /23 or /24 step.

The compromise opened a real door while leaving its next hinge unbuilt. A smaller network could ask ARIN directly for a justified /22; that is different from Darte’s earlier work on a downstream customer receiving one /24 from its provider. No published request count or post-implementation route-table series appears in these records. Those observations would settle whether Darte’s proposed staircase had evidence under it, or only a sensible drawing of where stairs might go.