In the referenced message, Ralph Doncaster said:
On Mon, 6 May 2002, Forrest W. Christian wrote:
On Mon, 6 May 2002, Ralph Doncaster wrote:
What is the generally accpted timeframe for renumbering? My reading of ARIN policy would seem to imply at least 30 days. [...] The bottom line is the space is theirs and they can do whatever they want with it.
Is that true? I thought the space belongs to ARIN, and they loan it to certain parties. Those parties can use the IPs in accordance with ARIN rules.
-Ralph
s/ARIN/IANA/ but yes, registries allocate based upon rules (most ISPs are registries). In theory, IANA could revoke 192.0.0.0/8, forcing the RiR's to revoke the space, forcing the LiR's to revoke the space, and so on until Joe Blow's /29 gets revoked. In practice, this has not to my knowledge ever occured. If we ever do reach a point where exhaustion of IPv4 is imminent, I would expect this to occur. Presently, there is a voluntary request for unused address space, but as long as it is voluntary, I don't expect there being any meaningful return of unused space.