[ppml] 2005-1 or its logical successor

[Paul Vixie]

tony, i suspect that we're talking past each other so let's stop soon, ok?

# ... The super-regional addresses are the source of the pain in the routing
# system so why shouldn't they carry the cost?

whose pain?  certainly from a multinational DFZ ISP's point of view, the cost
of super-regional addresses is a great source of pain, since the competition
they enable is only good for their competitors, whereas the cost is universal.
but for everybody else, maybe the pain of buying fatter routers is worthwhile
considering that it levels the playing field a little.

# Multi-homing within a region does have impact on the routers serving that
# region, but ONLY the routers within that region.

you're still basing assertions on a premise i've disputed, which is that there
are only a few very fat pipes between some kind of regions (maybe geographic),
and that this trend will continue.  i don't think it's true now, and i don't
think there are any natural reasons for it to ever be more true than it is now,
and i think that regionalized (geographic or otherwise) addressing would be an
unnatural way to cause this to become truer, and that if it becomes truer, the
internet industry as a whole will become even more brittle than it is, and the
end users will suffer for it, as will various shareholders.

if you want to presume benefits of regionality, then first either show me that
we have regionality now, or show me the other market or technological forces
that will lead to more regionality over time, and then we can talk about
whether a regionalized addressing system has a shadow it can travel within,
or whether regionalized addressing will MAKE a new shadow on the landscape.

# > # There is no reason for ARIN to even bother with evaluating 'need' or
# > # 'appropriate use' of PI space as long as there is a way for providers to
# > # aggregate out the ones that have not paid enough to support a global
# > # slot.
# > 
# > if we're going to do provider-centric address allocation design, why would
# > we say we wanted PI space at all?  how about we allocate space based on
# > need and appropriate use, and let providers compete on how well they can
# > serve their customers?
# 
# I didn't say they were provider centric, just that they could be aggregated
# out.

it's because you said that providers could aggregate them out, that i decided
that you must be looking at this in a provider centric way.

# In any case, who gets to decide the value of 'need' and why do they get to
# decide that?

providers and endusers are both members of the community.  it should be our
job to understand and balance their needs.  i'm not even sure there is any
conflict between the needs of providers' and endusers' in the long run, but
i do know that a policy that will singularly benefit only one of these
communities of interest is a mistake or at least uninteresting.

# > then let such cities get themselves some address space, build an internet
# > exchange, build a wireless network, number their citizens, and let transit
# > providers compete over the result.  ARIN's current policies would allow
# > this.  (and it's a damned damned DAMNED fine idea.)
# 
# ARIN policy allows this, but there is an external conflict in 'use of public
# funds to compete with industry'.

i'm sure that there's an industry out there ready to do just about everything
any given city does, including police and fire, sewage, road maintainance,
etc.  the decision of "what should government do?" is not decided solely by
"what wouldn't be worst for industry?" but rather "what would be best for the
citizenry?"

in this case the citizenry (me for example) would rather have my streets dug
up the fewest number of times, would like multiprovider address portability,
would like a lockin-free market where i can choose the provider of commodity
communications services.  i'd like my city to provide that to me, because it
would still require industry to provide the next leg -- transit, in this case,
as well as contract construction and management services to the city -- while
stabilizing the delivery of commodity communications services and probably
stabilizing the finances of the various industry players so we're not always
wondering who's going bankrupt next or who's buying whom next or whatever.

but we digress.

# It really doesn't matter if the exchange operator is a city, a consortium of
# ISPs, or an independent enterprise as in the current set.

actually, it does.  regulation of the real estate required for last-mile is
absolutely critical to the success of what i'm describing.

# The bottom line is that all the 'insanity' that is necessary to sort those
# things out within the city/region is contained at that exchange and the
# transit providers have a clean demarc to compete over.

i think we agree!  but only at the city or metro level, in my view.

but we REALLY digress.

# One of the biggest issues that gets overlooked is that we are not restricted
# to choosing one or the other.  PA space is fine for those that don't care
# where the space comes from.

people who don't care where the space comes from are often simply
undereducated rather than actively disinterested.  ask someone "would you
rather have address space that you can take to a new provider with you, or
address space that you'd have to renumber out of if you change providers?"
and you'll get a very modal result, peaking with the larger network owners
who will generally prefer NAT over PA once they understand the implications.

# Some entities (including DNS roots) have needs that don't fit in the PA
# model. The current debate is about who gets to pass judgment on the value of
# 'need'. The most effective judge of value is the organization requesting the
# resource. If they are presented with a menu of resource bundles and prices
# they can make the clear determination of the bundle that actually meets
# their need with the value measure that will naturally pushback to keep them
# from demanding more than they need.

that would be a fine thing.  the PA/PI split enabled by CIDR didn't leave
a choice nearly as viable as that.  i don't think regionalized (geo or
otherwise) addressing would leave any viable choices open, either, but we
could get to the point of discussing that if we could agree on some premises.

# A sequential allocation of PI space creates the swamp that becomes
# impossible to deal with over time. A structured allocation builds the option
# that down the road it is possible to enforce exchange point based
# aggregation if and/or where that becomes necessary. It really doesn't matter
# what structure you choose, the constraint of topology to fit that structure
# is what reduces the impact on the routing system. The point is to think
# about ways to allocate PI space that will allow for long terms options.

you're getting way ahead of yourself.  assuming we agreed that there was
some kind of regionality now, and was going to continue to be any, we'd have
to decide whether geographic, or topological, or linguistic, or cultural
regionality made the most sense as outer-block address pool boundaries.  this
whole topic area strikes me as a swamp when i consider the variables involved,
and it's bothering me that you keep acting as if they're all known constants.

paul