Policy Implementation and Experience Report#
ARIN 56 Public Policy and Members Meeting digest Program Adjacent pick 30–31 October 2025
John Sweeting, Chief Experience Officer, ARIN
- Why: The one session with hard numbers on the IPv4 transfer market and an honest account of where policy text fails operational reality — useful for anyone acquiring address space or watching IPv4 market mechanics.
- What: Three findings. (1) Section 4.10 (IPv4 for IPv6 deployment): ARIN cannot detect when IPv6 reallocations/reassignments are removed downstream, so it keeps landing in resource-intensive Section 12 audits — staff asked whether the policy needs rewriting. (2) The initial /24 policies (4.2.2/4.3.2) never stated in-region-only use, and have been broadly interpreted; staff suggests codifying it. (3) Inter-RIR transfers: 2020–2025 ARIN sent 126,326 /24-equivalents to RIPE NCC vs 38,176 received; in 2024 alone, 30,747 out vs 16,293 in. A single large broker moved 1,792 /24s for "network operational needs" into RIPE NCC, mostly now leased — driven by RIPE's permissive temporary-transfer/leasing policy vs ARIN's and LACNIC's stricter stances.
- How: Policy-experience reporting with transfer tables and a cross-RIR comparison of needs-based tests and leasing rules as the explanatory mechanism.
- Where applicable: Directly relevant to orgs buying/selling/leasing IPv4 or operating multi-region; the policy divergence analysis explains why transfer flows are so lopsided.