[LACNIC/Politicas] Consultation to the community [EN]

[Oscar Messano]

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

The term for presenting policy proposals to be discussed during our upcoming meeting in Salvador, Brazil, during the last week of May has expired.

We notice with satisfaction that good proposals were for their discussion, some of which deal with IPv4 address exhaustion, which is undoubtedly a very important issue for our community. 

The proposals that have been presented will undoubtedly promote discussions and debate on this issue.

In any case, beyond the discussion of the proposals that have been presented, the Board is interested in receiving opinions from our community on some of the important aspects that need to be considered during this stage.

LACNIC’s Board of Directors is fully committed to the interests of our regional community and defends these interests at the debates that are held in different fora on the issues of IPv4 exhaustion and transition to IPv6. We believe that the prompt adoption of IPv6 is the best measure that can be taken at this moment and that this is the best way to avoid traumatic transitions during the final stages of IPv4, but even so we need to act responsibly in order to ensure that any measures that are taken for the address depletion stage consider our regional interests and do not affect the operators of our operators.

Among others, LACNIC’s Board of Directors would specifically like to receive opinions on the following matters:

1) What should be done from this moment until the central pool of IPv4 addresses is depleted? Should the current policies continue to be applied or should policies be applied that  gradually modify the conditions required for accessing IPv4 addresses?

2) Should policies be developed that allow transferring IPv4 addresses among operators of the region? If so, what should LACNIC’s role be in these transactions?

3) Should something be done about unutilized legacy addresses (addresses that were allocated during the first stages of the Internet, before the existence of RISs)? Should an effort be made to recover those addresses?

4) The majority of legacy addresses were allocated in the more developed regions. In case legacy addresses were recovered, what should be done with these recovered addresses in order to ensure that they are available to operators in all regions?

We would like you to please send your comments to the list where these issues are being discussed. In addition, we have reserved part of the public forum session at the Salvador meeting for an open debate on these issues. The session is scheduled for Wednesday, 28 May, at 4:15 PM. 

This session, just as the rest of the meeting, will be broadcast via webcast and remote participation tools will be enabled, reasons for which we hope that you can also participate through these means.


Thanking you in advance, sincerely



On behalf of LACNIC’s Board of Directors
Oscar Messano
President.