[ppml] Where to get your address space (Was: on PPML? - was Re: How to get ...)

[Jeroen Massar]

Joel Jaeggli wrote:
> Jeroen Massar wrote:
[..]
> Their head office is in India...

Oops, in deed Teleglobe is VSNL, which is indeed in India :)
Showing even more how this case is international as it covers a third RIR region.

[..]
> Teleglobe is a large ISP with an lir function and likely qualifies for a
> /32 or larger under all current rir policy in all regions where they are
> present which is probably all of them.

Which is what I said, also why it is not problem at all that they got it as
they would easily qualify for it and very likely use most chunks of it.

The point that I wanted to make, which is clearly not seen, is that an
organization can in effect pick their RIR and go to the RIR that actually
caters for their needs irrespectively of their actual location or where the
prefix will be really used.

As such bypassing all the nice policies made on this list because in another
RIR region other people decided on something different.

In the RIPE region but need IPv6 "PI" space? Set up shop in the US, go to ARIN
and get your prefix, presto done, happy smiley engineer folks.

>> But still this shows that if a company wants, they could set up shop in Africa
>> and use AfriNIC policies to get an assignment, thus bypassing the policies
>> which are really in effect in the ARIN region.
> 
> My employer has a /32 in the arin region are we wasting it?

Most likely at the moment yes :)

But in the long term most _ISPs_ and you most likely too, will use quite a bit
of it. Trying to guess if you will be using exactly a /40 or a /36 or whatever
is futile, a /32 is assumed to be a generic fit-most-ISPs size. This is good
as it is equally divided and doesn't create a mess.

A RIR is not an ISP though and they will never be one and as such they ARE
wasting address space. Pushing their own request through their own system is
the weird thing there though.

[..]
> The rirs are in the business of handing out address space to their
> constituents. IPV4 has been a scare resource since 1992, possibly
> earlier, ipv6 is not.

IPv4 was not a scarce resource when it people started using it either.
Look at it now.

> Much of the current debate appears to focus on the scarcity of routing
> slots rather than address space. and a larger allocations where at one
> time perceived to produce benefits to topological aggregation.

I personally can't care less about routing slots and neither should the RIRs.
Clearly the RIR policies are indeed solely focused on routing slots while they
should be about managing address space.

IMHO this really has to change.

> You may be  of the opinion that a /48 is a hell of a lot of subnets.

That is a lot for a single site yes. But when the requesting organization can
demonstrate that it has a need for more address space and they can justify it
then they should always be able to get more address space. That is what RIRs
should be doing and nothing else.

[..]
> I read it as "Those crazy Africans are out of control" which I don't
> believe to be the case. My experience with afrinic policy creation is
> that it's at least as rational as the arin region, but you're entitled
> to your own opinion.

In this nice case there is no active policy to be found in that region which
allows them to give themselves a /32. And considering that they can't justify
more than 3 locations (thus 3 sites) and a 'few big projects', a /32 is really
a lot of wasted address space.

Greets,
 Jeroen

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