New policy on IPv4 exhaustion
30/11/2015
The LACNIC community has approved a change in its policy on the scope of Phase 2 of IPv4 exhaustion, expanding the number of addresses available during this phase prior to entering Phase 3.
The proposal was driven by Edmundo Cazares of Nic Mexico and all the stages established for the Expedited Policy Development Process were completed.
Together with the new IPv4 address space allocated by the IANA to the RIRs, the blocks returned to and revoked by LACNIC have extended the life initially estimated for the IPv4 protocol. All these new addresses had gone to Phase 3, so there were vastly different amounts of addresses available for the final two phases of IPv4 exhaustion.
It was in this context that Cazares presented his proposal for redistributing this space in almost equal parts. More specifically, his proposal suggested reassigning the /11 block originally assigned to Phase 3 and moving it to Phase 2, and maintaining returned and revoked space in Phase 3. Thus, both phases (2 and 3) would maintain a more even number of IPv4 addresses.
This redistribution has just been approved and implemented and will effectively postpone the end of Phase 2 while maintaining the resource allocation criteria used so far.
This makes it easier for new and existing members to access IPv4 addresses, as it postpones the end of Phase 2. In other words, member organizations will be able to request resources for some time (maximum block size /22; anyone receiving these resources can only make an additional request every 6 months).
During Phase 3, only new members will be able to receive IPv4 addresses (maximum block size /22).