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prop-161-v001: Using IPv6 for Internet of Things (IoT)

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Proposer: 
Guangliang Pan (Benny) (gpan123@hotmail.com)
Wei Wong (Wesley) (wesleywangbeijing@gmail.com)
Qiang Li (liqiang@xdns.cn)
Yaling Tan (tanyaling@hotmail.com)


1. Problem statement
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Internet of Things (loT) is part of the future Internet. However, there is no clear IPv6 policy for IoT in APNIC’s current policy environment. In some of the cases, the IoT industry needs to assign IPv6 to electronic smart devices as well as non-electronic items. The non-electronic items include company products and assets. IPv6 addresses will be used as universally compatible identifiers for these non-electronic items for the purpose of identification, verification, and tracing. It is a bit difficult for APNIC Hostmasters to evaluate such IPv6 requests without a clear policy to allow allocating IPv6 addresses to non-electronic items. This policy proposal aims to address this issue and meet the needs from the IoT industry.


2. Objective of policy change
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Add clear clauses about how IPv6 can be allocated to Internet of Things in IPv6 policy.


3. Situation in other regions
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There are some discussions about “Need IPv6 in IoT” in other regions. RIPE NCC has an “Internet of Things Working Group”.


4. Proposed policy solution
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1. Add a new clause in IPv6 policy.
8.2.3 Using IPv6 for Internet of Things (IoT)
IPv6 addresses can be allocated to IoT Objects which include electrical devices and non-electrical items. A default initial IPv6 allocation size for IoT is a /32. 

2. Add the following sentence at the end of 8.3.4. Size of subsequent allocation
An IoT Object will be counted as a normal single host while evaluating subsequent allocation size for IoT services according to the IPv6 policy.

5. Advantages / Disadvantages
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Advantages:
IPv6 has huge number of IP addresses and IoT needs huge number of IP addresses. It is a perfect match connects APNIC community with the IoT industry. Encourage using IPv6 for IoT will help IPv6 deployment in future Internet. 

Disadvantages:
None
Not to worry about run out of IPv6. The original design of IPv6 was for Internet of Things. You often hear IPv6 can be assigned to every single sand in the world :) We can trust APNIC Hostmasters will do the evaluation properly.

6. Impact on resource holders
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No impacts to the current resource holders in the APNIC region.


7. References
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