Summary

  • Uchenna N Ibekwe, Baokhanh N (Beth) Vu and Jason Schiller proposed one APNIC membership for a large ISP's separate country networks; each network would retain its own address use and peering plan.
  • At APNIC 20 in September 2005, neither the IPv4 nor the IPv6 component drew a clear consensus. The co-chair asked the proponents to revise and return.

An operator's network can cross a border without turning into one uniform network. In 2005, MCI held multiple APNIC accounts, one for each country. Uchenna N Ibekwe and two colleagues proposed an arrangement that would put those accounts under one membership while preserving the networks as separate operational units. The APNIC proposal record calls it prop-029, “discrete networks and national peering.” Its fate is blunt: consensus was not reached.

The first draft explained the attraction. Separate country networks could grow at different rates and face different peering conditions. MCI described global, continental or regional, and national peering. For national IPv6 peering, it wanted a country aggregate, typically a /32, that could be announced at the relevant level. The proposal also promised one billing cycle and fewer membership accounts. One administrative account would carry several distinct routing plans.

The authors did not ask APNIC to treat a loose alliance as one company. Their eligibility test required a single legal entity, prior RIR address space, at least two discrete multihomed networks and a compelling reason such as distance or regulation. The ISP would have to keep detailed country-network allocation records, register assignments and use its combined resources to determine its membership tier. The one-account idea came with an audit trail.

The second draft, dated 3 September, sharpened the utilization test. A new IPv4 request required more than 50% use of the last RIR block and the holder's allocations as a whole. Further IPv4 space inside a discrete network required its existing blocks to exceed 80% use individually. IPv6 would follow the existing HD-ratio rules. The first draft had stated the percentages without that IPv4 distinction. This mattered because the authors were trying to show that a single account would not become a hiding place for unused country pools.

At APNIC 20's Policy SIG, Ibekwe presented the plan. The minutes record a useful concession: if the technical arrangement could pass, the fee question could be handled separately, and the proponent would accept an equivalent fee. That stripped away an easy reading of the proposal as simply a discount request. Opponents still challenged its architecture. They argued that the HD ratio already measured efficient use across diverse networks, and recalled an earlier decision to stop confederation memberships because of their problems.

The co-chair divided the question into IPv4 and IPv6 and asked for hands on each. Neither result gave a clear consensus. The co-chair suggested revision and another presentation; the APNIC 20 policy report likewise records that prop-029 did not pass. APNIC publishes no vote count in these minutes. The paper had bundled membership, national routing, address allocation and billing into one request; separating the fee still left a disagreement about where APNIC should draw the operating boundary.

That boundary is the story. Ibekwe's national networks had their own routing and growth needs. APNIC's membership and utilization rules saw the whole holder as a unit that could already be assessed with existing measures. One side wanted the registry account to accommodate operational geography; the other feared a new account structure would add a policy category without improving resource discipline. The hands never settled it.