APNIC-xxx ========= ---- D R A F T ---- APNIC Confederation Concepts and Requirements Issued: July 20, 1997 Expires: December 31, 1997* *) This form is valid until superseded by another form. After the date specified, please check the APNIC document store located at ftp://ftp.apnic.net/apnic/docs for a later version of this form. 1.0 Introduction This document describes the concepts behind and requirements necessary for the creation of an APNIC recognized Internet Service Provider Confederation. In the realization that local support (in terms of language and culture) may provide a higher level of service than would otherwise be available through APNIC, the APNIC membership has created the concept of APNIC "Confederations". Confederations are intended to provide a means by which a group of service providers can group together to provide resource allocation and registration services tailored to their specific local language and cultural requirements. This document describes APNIC confederations and the requirements for their creation. 2.0 Internet Service Provider Confederations In realization of APNIC's limited ability to provide local language and cultural support to its membership, the APNIC membership has created an attribute to normal membership, known as an "Internet Service Provider (ISP) Confederation". ISP Confederations are defined to be a group of three or more Internet service providers (commercial or non-commercial) known as the confederation's members and an operational body known as the confederation's registry which provides allocation and registration services to the confederation members. It is assumed that the confederation's registry can act in a neutral and unbiased fashion to all confederation members and that the membership can entrust confidential information to the confederation's registry safely. A confederation's membership can be deliniated in many ways. In some cases, a confederation may be formed by a national government or other national body and be intended to provide allocation and registry services to service providers within the national boundaries. Historically, this form of confederation was known as a "national NIC". In other cases, competitive Internet service providers in multiple countries may join together to form a confederation with the only constraint on membership being a willingness to abide by the confederation's oprational and organizational rules. In all cases, it is required that the definitions for membership within a confederation are well defined and published. It should be noted that there is no intent to require a given ISP to become a member of a particular confederation, even if the ISP meets the membership requirements for the confederation. Confederation membership is considered voluntary and an ISP is always free to apply for APNIC or other appropriate registry membership. 3.0 Establishment Requirements To become an APNIC recognized Internet Service Provider Confederation and have resources delegated from APNIC, a confederation registry must meet the following requirements: 3.1 The confederation registry must be an independent, non-profit entity (not necessarily incorporated, however this is recommended) administratively distinct from any one particular confederation member. This allows the confederation registry to act in a neutral and unbiased fashion towards all its members. 3.2 The confederation registry must be composed of three or more non-affiliated Internet connectivity service providing organizations which provide Internet connectivity services that require delegation of blocks of addresses. This requirement ensures the overhead associated with a confederation is distributed over a sufficient number of organizations as well as reducing the likelihood of confederations being established to circumvent existing registry policies. 3.3 The confederation registry must pay a yearly fee to APNIC consisting of a base fee corresponding to the confederation's self determined size plus an additional per member fee as described below. This requirement will ensure APNIC has sufficient resources to continue processing confederation requests. 3.4 The allocation body of the confederation registry must demonstrate an understanding and willingness to abide by the guidelines documented in RFCs 2050 and 1930. This requirement ensures allocations made by the confederation are appropriate and consistent with existing registry guidelines. 3.5 The confederation registry must provide documents describing (in English): a) Confederation organizational structure and procedures including administrative structure and chain of appeal thereby giving APNIC the information necessary to adjudicate disputes brought before it; b) Membership eligibility requirements and termination procedures thereby allowing APNIC for redirect requests to confederations where appropriate c) Member organizations including i) Member organization's official name ii) Member organization's postal address iii) Member organization's email, telephone and facsimile numbers iv) Member organization's APNIC account name (if such exists) thereby reducing the likelihood of organizations joining multiple confederations in order to circumvent allocation restrictions. d) IP address allocation guidelines beyond those documented in RFC 2050. e) AS number allocation guidelines beyond those documented in RFC 1930. 3.6 Discussion The documents described in (5) will be made available to the Internet community via APNIC's informational services. Modifications to a confederation's structure, its membership, or any of its policies must be reported to APNIC within ten working days. In addition to these requirements, it is assumed confederations operate their own registration database systems. If the primary language of the confederation is not English, it is suggested the confederation database be provided in the appropriate local language. In any case, the operation of a local database does not relieve the confederation of the requirement of updating the APNIC database as the APNIC database is considered authoritative for all address blocks delegated by APNIC. 4.0 Confederation Member Fees In order to ensure that the APNIC services to individual confederation members are fairly charged to confederations to ensure that existing APNIC members are not subsidising the operation of servicing confederations, the APNIC membership has voted to impose a fee of US $2000 per confederation member per year in addition to the yearly APNIC self-determined membership fee. In order to provide for an orderly transition from the former funding regime to the new per-member confederation fee system, a confederation which was already an existing financial APNIC member as of 1 March 1997 and which undertakes sub-registry services and validation of all service requests by confederation members prior to submission to APNIC will be assessed the yearly self-determined membership fee plus a per confederation member fee scaled over time as: Fiscal Year Yearly Fee ------------------------------------------------------- Jan 1, 1997 - Dec 31, 1997 US $500 per member Jan 1, 1998 - Dec 31, 1998 US $800 per member Jan 1, 1999 - Dec 31, 1999 US $1100 per member Jan 1, 2000 - Dec 31, 2000 US $1400 per member Jan 1, 2001 - Dec 31, 2001 US $1700 per member Jan 1, 2002 - thereafter US $2000 per member For the purposes of determining the yearly fee, a confederation member is any organization to which the confederation assigns or allocates portable (provider independent) addresses space. 5.0 Address Allocation Procedures Confederations will be allocated blocks of addresses and autonomous sytem numbers which are intended to be sub-allocated to confederation member organizations, with the amount of address space allocated by APNIC rounded up to the next power-of-two block. It is expected the confederation will allocate resources to their members in a fashion similar to the allocation mechanisms documented in RFC 2050 (e.g., "slow-start") and RFC 1930. When a member has consumed its allocation, the member should contact the confederation administrator to request additional address space. If the confederation administrator has insufficient resources to meet the member's request, the confederation administrator should request additional space from APNIC via the appropriate form. When APNIC receives this form, APNIC will review the allocation history for the confederation and verify reassignments have been made appropriately. Assuming all requirements have been met, APNIC will allocate additional resources sufficient to enable the confederation to operate 3 to 6 months without need of additional address space. APNIC always reserves the right to reduce or withhold resource allocations to confederations which do not conform to APNIC or accepted Internet allocation policies. Should a confederation be established which has as a member an existing APNIC member, APNIC will not allocate a new block to the confederation for that member immediately, but will instead transfer control of that block to the confederation. 6.0 Voting Rights For the purposes of voting in APNIC meetings, a confederation is entitled to cast votes based on the following: Votes for self-determined category (Large = 4, Medium = 2, Small = 1) plus 1 vote for every 5 members to a maximum of 8 votes. Thus if a confederation chooses to call itself "medium" and has 17 members, it would be able to cast 2 + 17 div 5 = 5 (where "div" is integer division) votes. 7.0 Conclusion Internet Service Provider Confederations are intended to provide resource allocation and registration services to subsets of the Asia Pacific Internet community which APNIC serves. These confederations allow for local language and culture issues to be address more readily than APNIC can provide in order to provide a higher level of service to particular subsets of APNIC's membership.