On Jul 5, 2023, at 10:06 PM, Owen DeLong via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
...
Opinions regarding leasing vary throughout the industry. In my opinion, since 
the shift to provider assigned addresses during the CIDR efforts in the mid 
1990s, the majority of addresses have been leased in one form or another.

The only thing novel here is the leasing of addresses independent of 
connectivity services. However, once the RIRs and their communities normalized 
the sale of addresses through directed transfer policies, I think this was an 
inevitable next step in the devolution of IPv4 into a monetized asset.

It doesn’t help that the earliest and most prolific adopters of this form of 
leasing have been snowshoe spammers.

However, there are leasing agencies that insist on getting proper justification 
from their customers and have strong anti-abuse policies. I would strongly 
encourage you to seek out such an organization to partner with if you choose to 
lease your addresses as there are a number of pitfalls you can encounter 
otherwise.

To follow-up on Owen’s points and clarify just a bit (at least to respect to 
policy in the ARIN region) –

– IP address blocks in the ARIN region are issued by ARIN based upon 
operational need (as per the community-developed policy document in the Number 
Resource Policy Manual [NRPM - 
https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/nrpm/]<https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/nrpm/%5D>)

– Portions of IP address blocks are routinely “leased” by ISPs to customers, 
although such leasing has historically been as part of a bundle including 
connectivity services.

– Because one needs IP addressed to provide connectivity services, leasing of 
address space as part of providing connectivity is considered operational need 
(and as such counts towards utilization of one’s address space)

– Leasing of IP address space independent of connectivity doesn’t fulfill 
operational need, and hence doesn’t count as utilization when you come back to 
ARIN seeking additional space (or approval of a transfer inwards of an IP 
address block)

– Leasing of IP address blocks independent of connectivity is not explicitly 
recognized in ARIN number resource policy (i.e. there is no policy that 
specifically allows or prohibits such activity.)

– In the ARIN region, we have fairly clear guidelines requiring documentation 
[via SWIP, RWHOIS, RDAP…] of significant reassignment/reallocations to 
connectivity customers (as part of documenting IP address block usage), but no 
clear requirements for reporting of reissuance of space via leasing independent 
of connectivity.  Furthermore, all address blocks in the ARIN registry are 
required to have accurate abuse contacts (unless residential in which case 
accurate contacts must be in the upstream providers block.)

If folks wish to have the registry operate accordingly to some other policies, 
please submit a policy proposal 
<https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/pdp/appendix_b/> (or seek out a member 
of the ARIN Advisory Council <https://www.arin.net/about/welcome/ac/> which 
helps shepherd the policy development process and can assist you with 
preparation of same…)

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers











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