The IP Address Divide: The Quest of Developing Countries for an ITU-Based Distribution Regime

ABSTRACT

There is discontentment among certain developing countries with regard to the geographical distribution of IPv4 addresses. They blame the IPv4 policies for creating an imbalanced distribution between developed and developing nations. With the introduction of IPv6, there are no signs of these concerns becoming things of the past, as evidenced in various initiatives that call for a UN-based address distribution regime. By reviewing the respective policies for IPv4 and IPv6 distribution, this article argues that at the heart of such concerns and initiatives lies the fact that the core policy features in IPv4 distribution, which are considered responsible for creating the imbalance, have made their way into IPv6 distribution policies. In addition, the assessment of other distribution alternatives reveals that an ITU-based IP address regime or at least the ITU-based proposals on the table thus far do not address the concerns raised by developing countries. Efforts to address such a concern should rather be directed at introducing policy options that would ensure a balanced distribution of IP addresses into the current regime. Ultimately, this article seeks to contribute to the discussion on future directions by suggesting a policy option that the current regime could embrace to alleviate such a genuine concern.

Keywords:

• Equitable distribution
• Historical institutionalism
• IP addresses and developing countries
• IP address distribution models
• IP address policy
• IPv4
• IPv6

Acknowledgments

This article is written as part of the Igov2 project (See further: http://www.jus.uio.no/ifp/english/research/projects/internet-governance). The author is grateful to Lee A. Bygrave, Emily Weitzenboeck, Tobias Mahler, and Kevin McGillivray for their valuable comments on several drafts and their constant guidance throughout the process of writing this article. Thanks are also due to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback, and to Kinfe Micheal, Mulu and Meg for their comments and support. However, any errors or omissions are the author's alone.

Notes

1. Huston (2011a) indicated that an IP address enables the unique identification of an endpoint from all other endpoints, but is barely able to identify parties at the endpoints and their exact geographical location in a network. Cf. Moiny (2011), who discusses the tendencies within the EU to consider IP addresses as personal data.

2. IANA is the organization responsible for the global coordination of the DNS Root, allocation of IP addresses, and other Internet protocol resources (http://www.iana.org/about/).

3. According to Huston (2011a), if each IPv6 address were a single grain of sand, it would be enough to construct 300 million planets, each the size of the earth.

4. IETF is a technical body with the task of producing relevant technical and engineering documents that influence the manner in which people design, use, and manage the Internet. Its main mission is “to make the Internet work better” (http://www.ietf.org/).

5. Route aggregation is the process of minimizing the number of entries in routing tables where a number of IP allocations of end users are aggregated, for example, by an intermediary provider, into a single route announcement (Mueller, 2010).

6. The APNIC region spans the entire Asia Pacific region and Oceania (http://www.apnic.net/about-APNIC/organization/apnics-region).

7. The RIPE NCC service region includes Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Central Asia (http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/new-lir/about-the-ripe-ncc-2012.pdf).

8. The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), which serves the North American region, was predicted to run in early 2012, which has not happened yet. See also CircleID News (2012).

9. LACNIC serves the Latin America and the Caribbean regions (http://www.lacnic.net/en/web/lacnic/acerca-lacnic).

10. AFRINIC serves the African region (http://www.afrinic.net/en/about-us).

11. Mueller et al. (2012) describe the incompatibility as one of the most fateful and questionable design decisions in the IETF's history.

12. See OECD (2007) and note the fact that the transition mechanism to IPv6 requires significant capital and operational costs and poses a particular challenge to developing regions. See also Lehr et al. (2008). Further, see also Edelman (2009), who indicates that the wider use of NAT disproportionately affects low-income countries and results in a second-rate Internet access, thereby further limiting development.

13. NAT, standardized in 1994 by RFC1631 (Request for Comments), is an Internet host that permits a single address to be used to connect many devices, without having publicly routable IP addresses (Dell, 2010, pp. 4).

14. This and other issues have forced the U.S. Senate to pass a resolution urging the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations to oppose any regulation of the Internet by the UN (Bono Mack, 2012).

15. The section “Alternative Distribution Models” discusses this issue in greater detail.

16. See Mueller (2009), who notes the lack of any measure for reclaiming IPv6 addresses; Huston (2005a) and Narten (2005) also note that the current HD ratio could lead to premature exhaustion of IPv6 address space. See also Huston (2005a), who notes the potential of a similar imbalance occurring again with IPv6.

17. For example, there is no direct end user allocation from IANA or RIRs (Mueller, 2006).

18. Most of the discussions on IPv6 allocation policy are based on the recommendation as documented in Narten, Huston, and Roberts (2001; http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3177.txt) and Van de Velde, Popoviciu, Chown, Bonness, and Hahn (2008; http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5375). This article is cognizant of the benefits attributable to the liberal approach adopted, as detailed in Narten, et al. (2001) and Mueller (2009).

19. For example, APNIC and ARIN began offering /56 rather than /48 to some users and increased the HD ratio from .80 to .94 (Mueller, 2009).

20. As discussed in the section “How Big Is IPv6?,” Huston argues that the current policy could result in a similar outcome where early adopters from developed nations are rewarded and later adopters pay the penalty.

21. This contradicts the perception within the current regime that all that happened is a problem of the past, not the present. The NRO has long argued that the current institutions cannot be blamed for the geographical inequality and partially the resultant inefficiency of IPv4 (NRO, 2004). In other words, the NRO is shifting the blame to putative “previous” institutions. In fact, from historical institutionalism perspective, institutional change, which is a change in idea, has yet to come.

22. Such concerns were expressed by Wolfgang Kleinwächter of Aarhus University, Milton Mueller of Syracuse University School of Information Studies, and Larry Solemn of Georgetown University during the presentation of this research at the Igov2 project symposium held in Oslo in August 2012.

23. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGMLhaa98GI.

24. It is not the aim of this article to grapple with the difficult question of what equitable distribution would be like. In this article, the term is used to refer to a distribution regime that somehow addresses the problems identified with respect to the IPv4 distribution regime and persist in the current regime, that is, the geographic imbalances and possession of excessive address space by early adopters that leads to a windfall for them and barriers and penalties for late adopters. These are the interests represented in the claim of developing countries for balanced distribution (see Huston, 2005a, pp. 15 and Kissangou et al., 2006, pp. 25).

25. See note 24 above regarding the “interest of developing countries.”

26. DeNardis (2009) also argues that ITU had traditionally defended the interest of developing countries.

27. Huston (2005b) indicates that the proposal creates policy confusion that undermines route aggregation and routing security. It could also lead to rapid consumption, hoarding, and address trading markets by nations that would result in premature exhaustion of IPv6 addresses.

28. Chander (2003) describes ICANN as undemocratic and its decision-making process as obscure and undemocratic. See also footnote 333 in Chander (2003)

29. Mueller (2006) also notes the self-interest within the prevailing governing institutions in defending the status quo. Chander (2003, pp. 766) explains that “one important consequence of any disposition of a resource is that it affirms the sovereignty of the entity disposing of that resource.” This could be compared with the concept of resistance to change in historical institutionalism, where it is maintained that “Institutions are resistant to redesign ultimately because they structure the very choices about reform that the individual is likely to make” (Hall & Taylor, 1996, pp. 940).

30. See the full count of ITU's weakness in governing the Internet in Ryan (2012).

31. For example, the routing table instability is mainly due to the possible addition of over 200 national registries. Similarly, the fear of NRO that the ITU-NIR system might lead to unfair distribution of IPv6 addresses is rooted in the addition of NIRs. Moreover, other main objections are based on the sluggish decision-making of intergovernmental institutions, such as the ITU, which possibly opens the door for government interference.

32. An equitable allocation of IP addresses is at the center of these rationales. Huston (2005b) elaborates that the underlying assumption of the ITU proposal for NIRs is that IP addresses as critical global resources should be distributed in a manner that is fair in terms of relative amounts of resource allocation to each national entity. See also National Advanced IPv6 Centre of Excellence (2009), which notes that the ITU could be the best alternative to ensure that the Internet evolves in a direction that protects and advances a fair distribution of global Internet resources. See also Kissangou et al. (2006).

33. This can be further supplemented by Ingo Take's (2012) argument that ICANN achieves the best normative legitimacy in governing the Internet compared to the ITU and other transnational governance arrangements, such as WSIS (World Submit for Information Society). Ingo Take used the following indicators to reach this conclusion. First is input legitimacy—the extent of representation and equal participation of all stakeholders in these institutions. Second is throughput legitimacy—focusing on the extent to which decision-making is transparent and the extent to which decision makers will be held accountable for their actions. Both input and throughput indicators are supplemented by substantive legitimacy—the expertise and problem-solving capacity of regulators. The third indicator used by Ingo Take is output legitimacy—the degree to which a governance arrangement succeeds in generating acceptance by its internal and external stakeholders.

34. According to 2012 BT Connect (2012, pp. 8) IPv6 Industry Survey, 40% of respondents agree or strongly agree that IPv6 deployment does not offer a sufficiently strong return on investment (ROI).

35. As cited by Adams and Freedman (1976), an experiment by Leventhal and Bergman (1969) shows that subjects who were moderately under-rewarded by their partner tended to redress the inequity by taking some of their partner's money when given an opportunity to reallocate the moneys.

36. As Rips (2008) puts it, “One damn thing leads to another.”

37. It is claimed that the IPv4 address market could help distribute resources from regions that typically underutilize their allocation, such as Africa, thereby offering them an income that could be put to productive use by selling their unused addresses (IEEE-USA, 2009).