Summary

  • Evandro Antonio Ramos Terra Varonil de Sousa authored both versions of LAC-2017-4. LACNIC implemented its new /24 minimum for an ISP's first IPv4 allocation on 31 August 2017, replacing a /22 minimum.
  • The final text allowed a /24-to-/22 first request with proof of immediate need for 25%, a one-year plan for 50%, return of previous provider space within 12 months and an IPv6 request if the applicant lacked a LACNIC IPv6 block.

An Internet service provider needs an address block it can announce and manage as its own. In 2017, LACNIC's policy set the first IPv4 allocation floor at a /22: 1,024 addresses. Evandro Antonio Ramos Terra Varonil de Sousa, an operator who had built Brazilian networks, proposed a /24 instead: 256 addresses. The difference was three quarters of a starter block. For a new ISP with a modest first customer base, that could be the difference between an application that fit its business and one that demanded a year's growth on day one.

The LACNIC policy history names him as author of both versions. Its rationale came after the region entered IPv4 exhaustion Phase 3 on 15 February 2017. Varonil argued that the old /22 floor made little sense in the final phase. He also pointed to the /24's practical place at the edge of the routing system: it was the smallest IPv4 block commonly accepted by Internet edge routers. His proposal made room for a small ISP to start with its own IPv4 and IPv6 resources, including IPv4 translation during growth.

The numbers in the final text deserve a closer look than the headline. An applicant could request between /24 and /22. It had to show immediate use or need for at least a quarter of that request and a detailed one-year plan for at least half. At the /24 floor, that means 64 addresses now and a plan covering 128. The first version asked for a plan for the whole requested /24; the second version changed the horizon to half of a possible /24-to-/22 request. Varonil narrowed the doorway and made the evidence test fit more than one size of entrant.

The other conditions stayed sharp. An ISP using a block previously assigned by an upstream provider had to renumber and return that space within 12 months of its own allocation. An applicant without a LACNIC IPv6 block had to request one at the same time. Those clauses kept the smaller IPv4 ticket connected to a concrete network plan and the region's IPv6 future.

LACNIC ratified LAC-2017-4 in August and implemented it on 31 August 2017. Its named candidate biography describes his work founding and running Brazilian ISP businesses and his board service beginning in 2018. A later official election certificate records 2,005 votes for him in the 2024 three-seat board contest. The policy decision came first; the board career followed. The /24 rule remains the more interesting portrait of an operator reading scarcity from the position of someone trying to open a network.