Summary

  • Brian Jones and Matthew Gamble shepherded ARIN-2024-4, a proposed definition of an Internet exchange point as a shared physical switching fabric used by at least three autonomous systems.
  • After questions about independent participants, virtual exchanges and conflicting allocation rules, Jones moved to abandon the draft on 25 October 2024; the council agreed unanimously.

Three ASNs walk into an exchange. Are they three customers, or one company wearing three badges? That was the question waiting behind the apparently neat number in ARIN-2024-4. The draft would have defined an Internet exchange point as a shared physical switching fabric used by three or more autonomous systems. For a policy manual that already granted exchange points special treatment, a definition sounded overdue. The trouble began when the definition met the people who would have to use it.

Brian Jones, a member of ARIN’s Advisory Council, and Matthew Gamble shepherded the draft. Aaron Wendel and Martin Hannigan had originated the proposal in April 2024. Its first version specified Ethernet; a June revision removed that word. At ARIN 54 in October, Jones explained the change and brought a more awkward question to the room: should an exchange need two participants or three? ARIN staff had found that section 4.4 of the Number Resource Policy Manual spoke of three other participants, while section 6.10.1 spoke of only two other participants. A single definition would sit across both rules.

Then the room changed the unit of measurement. Douglas Camin asked whether one organization with several ASNs could declare itself an exchange. Three routing identifiers are easy to count; three independent parties are a different test. Another speaker asked where a virtual exchange fitted under “physical switching fabric.” Kevin Blumberg questioned whether a technical definition said enough about the public-good purpose behind critical-infrastructure allocations. The ARIN 54 transcript records Jones explaining why “Ethernet” had been removed. Removing a technology label had made the sentence broader; it had not resolved whom the sentence admitted.

A day later, Jones brought the debate back to the council. The 25 October minutes record him saying the draft lacked community support and moving to abandon it. Gamble seconded; the vote was unanimous. ARIN marked the draft abandoned on 30 October. Jones did something less theatrical than winning a definition and more useful than quietly leaving a flawed one on the docket: he closed the version he was responsible for shepherding. The three-ASN test never entered the manual through this draft.