The day has come

[Guillaume.Leclanche at swisscom.com]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim Chown
> Sent: Monday, January 17, 2011 2:38 PM
> >> In any case, nobody knows how the end game will be handled; it could
> >> be that IANA wants to hand out the last blocks in some symbolic way.
> >
> > 	at the opening of Apricot2011 perhaps?
> 
> ICANN in March?

On the contrary, I believe it's pretty clear how the end game will be handled; IANA has to follow the policies first of all, so if I'm correct the flow is :
- APNIC requests 2 or more additional /8
- IANA has to allocate 2 /8 because APNIC is entitled to get them (and they've been entitled to for a long time already),
- IANA has to allocate 1 /8 to each RIR because there are only 5 /8 left,
- IANA and the RIRs have to reflect the allocation in their resources and everybody knows it from the records.
Source: http://www.icann.org/en/general/allocation-remaining-ipv4-space.htm. It looks like IANA is not really allowed to delay any of those steps.

As a consequence, the official announcement should come before the records are updated online, that is in the same day as the allocation is done.

I imagine the only way to delay the announcement would be APNIC requesting only 1 /8, or not requesting anything at all. And all Asia-Pacific ISPs would kill them.

Guillaume