I did mention the policy had since changed, and that [with IPv4 runout] it was largely moot at this point. But, the last time I started the process of requesting an additional allocation, we got bit by the old policy (which was, IIRC, not explicitly stated anywhere in the NRPM) as $work was a CDN with global footprint and had infrastructure in regions served by ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, and Registro.br/NIC.br, and had used ARIN IPs all around the world. On Tue, 26 Aug 2025, John Sweeting wrote:
ARIN’s current Out of Region policy can be found in Section 9 of the ARIN Number Resource Policy Manual, see https://www.arin.net/participate/policy/nrpm/#9-out-of-region-use
From: Jon Lewis via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Date: August 25, 2025 at 11:36:59 AM EDT To: David Conrad via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> Subject: Re: Digital Element, Neustar (Transunion) & ipinsight.io Reply-To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog@lists.nanog.org>
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025, David Conrad via NANOG wrote:
The problem is the assumed binding of <IP address, geographic address> in the “northern hemisphere” or wherever. This has never been guaranteed, has always been questionable, and, historically, was actively discouraged, at least by the RIRs (“the Internet does not use geopolitical boundaries for address allocation”, handwaving away the RIR geographical monopolies).
Huh? It wasn't that many years ago, ARIN considered "out of region" utilized IP space to not qualify as "utilized" for purposes of qualifying for additional allocations by showing your existing allocations were sufficiently utilized.
Though that issue is relatively moot at this point, that policy did eventually change.
The problem, as I think you pointed out earlier, is that various parties, for good or ill, need there to be an <IP,geo> binding, even if it doesn’t really exist, so using what information they have, they make it up as they go along. Sometimes (usually) it works. Sometimes, it doesn’t. The crux is that, when it doesn’t, the mechanisms to fix the binding, such as they are, sucks
This varies quite a bit from one IP Geo provider to the next. Some are pretty good (have web pages where you can do test queries against their data, will accept your geofeed data if you tell them where to get it, etc.). Others (like Digital Element) seem to be entirely opaque and obtuse.
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