Summary

  • RIPE-858 treats ending the service agreement and deregistering number resources as separate procedures, so an LIR’s closure raises two distinct questions for its operator.
  • Proposal 2026-03 adds audit and closure language to the IPv6 draft but does not show how its responsibility clause maps onto those procedures.

Analysis

RIPE NCC put Proposal 2026-03 into the Discussion Phase on 19 October. For an LIR, the drafting question reaches beyond wording: RIPE-858 treats ending the service agreement and deregistering number resources as separate procedures, yet the new clause does not show how its statement that RIPE NCC takes responsibility connects to either path. Version 1.0 affects RIPE-738, the IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment Policy, and is open for comment until 17 November. RIPE NCC policy officer Marco Schmidt is listed as proposer. The proposal says its aim is to clarify the post-provisioning framework and align IPv6 text with IPv4. Its rationale calls the change a strict clarification, without a substantive change to the policy’s original intent. That is the proposer’s account of the draft, not an adopted policy finding. (Proposal 2026-03; RIPE NCC announcement)

The draft’s most consequential addition is not the audit heading alone. Proposed section 10 says the RIPE NCC may close an LIR if it owes money, cannot be contacted for a significant period, or consistently violates community policy. It then says the RIPE NCC takes on responsibility for address space held by closing LIRs. The text names a trigger and an institutional responsibility, but does not spell out the sequence, thresholds or resource treatment attached to that sentence.

Those steps already have a home. RIPE-858, published in May, separates termination of the RIPE NCC Standard Service Agreement from deregistration of Internet number resources. It describes grounds for termination, notices and timelines, then sets out resource-specific procedures and consequences. Its policy-violation section covers repeated non-compliance; its resource section addresses cases such as allocations made contrary to policy and explains the route toward deregistration. (RIPE-858)

That distinction leaves an operator with a practical task: compare the proposal’s new closure trigger and responsibility sentence with the notices, timelines and resource-specific steps in RIPE-858 to see how each process applies. The proposal page does not say whether section 10 is a compact pointer to those procedures, a restatement of existing authority or a change to their connection. It documents no case or operational result, so readers should not infer one.

The draft also changes how readers encounter audit. Section 9 directs them to the RIPE NCC Audit Activity document. That gives the IPv6 policy an explicit route to the audit process, while the proposal’s separate closure section raises the next question: what happens after an audit or another compliance finding reaches an LIR’s service agreement and resources? The answer must be read across policy and procedure documents rather than inferred from the new clause alone. (RIPE-738; RIPE NCC Audit Activity, RIPE-694)

Sources

Nothing in the proposal has changed the current policy. It remains open for discussion, and the RIPE Policy Development Process leaves progression to the proposer with the agreement of the working-group chairs after feedback. Readers should therefore treat the listed closure conditions and responsibility sentence as proposed wording. The useful test for the discussion is textual: can the proposal explain how its new policy-level summary connects to the existing notice, termination and deregistration procedures without implying a second or different process? (RIPE PDP, RIPE-781)