On Tue, Jul 07, 2015 at 04:17:23PM +0000, Kennedy, James wrote:
True. If indeed the "downstream" in this policy statement is in relation to the hierarchical registry system rather than in BGP transit terms, then yes PA customer assignments that are routed separately to the LIR are valid.
Actually, even assignments which are *not at all* connected to the Internet are valid. In practice, the vast majority of assignments will be downstream of the assigning LIR due to the routing issues mentioned earlier in the thread.
I raised the question as I've heard several community members complain, validly IMO, about some LIRs that have accumulated vast v4 PA allocations that are technically autonomous to the LIR. Seems strange to have been allowed, especially considering the market value on these resources now.
It is allowed because the intention of the policy was never to impose a hierarchy on the structure of the Internet, merely to have a distributed registry, rather than one huge juggernaut. And yeah, the phrasing is sufficiently ambiguous for this to have come up on the list before... rgds, Sascha Luck
