Authors: Bertrand Cherrier, Ching-Heng Ku and Shaila Sharmin.
APNIC Special Interest Groups (SIGs) provide an open, public forum to discuss topics of interest to the APNIC and Internet community in the Asia Pacific region. APNIC currently hosts four SIGs that hold meetings twice a year at APNIC conferences. They’re a great opportunity to participate in discussions related to managing Internet numbers, routing security, Internet policy and governance, and get important updates from the National Internet Registries (NIRs) in the region.
What happens at the Policy SIG?
The Policy SIG encourages anyone with an interest to join and help develop policies and procedures relating to resource allocation, recovery, and transfer, and for resource registration within whois, reverse DNS, RPKI, and related services by APNIC, NIRs, and ISPs.
The Policy SIG Open Policy Meeting (OPM) is where the community meets to discuss and reach consensus on policies proposed by their peers. For example, at APNIC’s last major conference, APNIC 53, three proposals reached a consensus: prop-142: Unify Transfer Policies Text, prop-143: ASN to Customer and prop-144: Reserve pool under Experimental Allocation Policy.
The Policy SIG Chairs invite policy authors to present their proposals and open for discussion. After hearing the views of the community, the Chairs open a call for consensus to determine the next step in the Policy Development Process (PDP). It should be noted that consensus isn’t a vote. It’s a way of broadly measuring opinion and the Chair’s final decision takes many additional factors into account, including earlier discussions on the mailing list.
Here’s the steps to participate and voice your opinions on proposals:
- Join the Policy SIG mailing list to discuss proposals before the Open Policy Meeting (OPM).
- Attend the OPM, listen to how the proposed policies potentially affect your networks and/or business and ask questions.
- Join the consensus call to show your support or object to the proposed solution.
Why you should get involved at APNIC 54
This is a community-driven process where you can affect real change. Input from all parts of the region and all community members is encouraged, and it’s a great way to learn more about important aspects of network operations. As any policy change will affect you, it is important to let others know what you think of proposed changes.
For more details about participating in the APNIC 54 POLICY SIG OPM, and to read the policy proposals, please visit the APNIC 54 policy page.
The OPM for Policy SIG at APNIC 54 will be held on Thursday, 15 September 2022 at the Grand Hyatt Singapore with online participation for remote attendees.
Want to learn more and get involved? Join the Policy SIG mailing list.
The views expressed by the authors of this blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of APNIC. Please note a Code of Conduct applies to this blog.