Summary

  • LACNIC proposal LAC-2016-1 first said an IPv4-only operator in a dispute with an IPv6-only network must be required to support dual stack. A later version changed the instruction to advice; the proposal was abandoned in May 2016.
  • On 8 January 2016, Nicolás Antoniello objected that settling such disputes lay outside a regional registry’s specific tasks and that LACNIC could hardly force a network to choose dual stack, NAT64 or another engineering answer.

The address book was about to issue network instructions. In the first version of LAC-2016-1, an IPv4-only operator in a connectivity dispute with an IPv6-only counterpart “must be required” to upgrade its infrastructure for dual stack. The author wanted to move IPv6 adoption along and avoid relying on NAT64. The proposed destination was familiar to engineers. The unfamiliar part was who would order the journey.

Nicolás Antoniello had spent years close to the machinery. In a 2017 LACNIC interview, he recalled working in Uruguay’s ANTEL operations center as LACNIC began, then serving as policy-forum moderator or co-moderator from 2009 to 2015. He had helped new authors shape proposals. When this one arrived in January 2016, he was outside the chair but still on the mailing list.

His 8 January reply did not quarrel with the wish for better connectivity. He questioned the proposed institution doing the compelling. Resolving that dispute, he wrote, did not belong to a RIR’s specific work; LACNIC would struggle to “obligar” an operator to adopt dual stack, NAT64 or any other technical remedy. He opposed the text as framed. A stale subject line on the email says “2015-6”; the proposal notice quoted inside the message names LAC-2016-1, matching the official record.

The policy record shows what happened to the verb. In a second version, last modified on 29 February, the IPv4-only side “will be advised” to evolve to IPv6; avoiding NAT64 became guidance in the rationale. LACNIC marked the proposal abandoned on 4 May after its LACNIC 25 discussion. The documents show an objection, a later softer draft and abandonment. They do not name a single comment as the cause of that edit.

Antoniello’s question outlived the proposal. An address registry can record which organization holds a number block. A carrier deciding how to bridge IPv4 and IPv6 is configuring a live network, with another carrier on the other side of the dispute. In 2016, one proposal tried to close the distance between those jobs with “must.” The next draft needed “advised.” The forum still said no.