Hi,
If you can justify a /8, ARIN will allocate one to you (not that I speak for ARIN or anything, but that's how things work). Presumably Softbank BB justified the /8 APNIC allocated to them. I don't know about APNIC, but ARIN's rules are generally structured to make justification of a /8 all but impossible.
Justin: I would be interested in understanding why you feel this to be the case (not that I'm disagreeing with you, rather I'm actually curious). In theory, justification for a /8 is no more impossible than justification for a /19. Of course, justifying a /8 will require proportionally more information than for a /19, but I wouldn't imagine this would be impossible.
I suspect this is actually a typo or misreading of some sort.
I don't believe it is.
The business of the rir's is providing ip addresses to their members. if withholding the remaining address space became more important than supporting the needs of the community of interest, then they've obviously failed their membership.
Yes. More to the point, given ARIN's policies, like the other RIRs, are defined in open public policy meetings, it would indicate either the community of interest desired the policies to be that way or the ARIN staff had run amok. I do not believe either to be the case. Rgds, -drc