[arin-ppml] efficient utilization != needs basis

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

>   That's great for Ford or American Airlines.

It's not just for big companies like Ford. Last time I looked
the ANX connected over 4000 companies of all sizes that are
part of the supply chain for the major auto manufacturers.
I don't know how many companies are on the SITA network but
it connects all international airports including small ones
like YLW in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. It also connects
all the international airlines, and some other supporting
companies. The BT Radianz network connects over 10,000 sites
around the globe that are part of the Global Financial Services
Industry. Roughly 250 companies on the Radianz network are 
service providers that are analogous to the big hosting sites
on the public Internet.

Those are the three COIN's that I know about, but there may
be others.

>   That's totally ridiculous for linking the 7 locations of 
> Bob-DryCleaning's together over $200 VPN.

Of course you are right. I wasn't suggesting that any handful
of companies who need to communicate need special treatment
and in particular, I am talking about COINs which bypass the
Internet, i.e. they primarily have separate infrastructure
not just a VPN overlay on the public Internet. Such COINs
actually provide a service to the Internet community by taking
traffic off the public Internet and slowing the rate of growth
to give vendors and operators time to react to growth. Note 
also that a community of interest network does not bypass
network operators. In fact, network operators build and operate
separate infrastructure for the COINs. 

>   The big guys do not have a problem --- look the government 
> of germany just got a /26.  No big deal for them to parcel 
> off a /32 for use on some COIN.

That's another good point. We have no scarcity of IPv6 addresses
so if an organization needs a much larger block than a /32
to build their network, they can get it. This time around we
have enough address space to handle all global and local 
telecommunications needs of the whole planet even if the
population continues growing and 3rd world countries build
the same infrastructure per person as the 1st world. In other
words, there is no need to skimp. If you have big plans, and
they are realistic plans, then ARIN should give you the allocation
needed to make those plans a reality. We still should ask
applicants to demonstrate operational need for the allocation
and justify the magnitude of the allocation as well.

>   It's the small guys that will have a problem --- and it 
> will be the small guys that will deploy useful things first.  

The jury is out on that one. The Internet is no longer the weird
new technology out in left field. It is the heart of all
communications infrastructure and everyone now realises this.

--Michael Dillon

P.S. there has recently been some discussion in RIPE of 
a new transitional technology called 6RD that requires a
much larger ISP allocation than would otherwise be justified
to map the entire IPv4 address space into one ISP's allocation.
This is an example of operational need where the fact of
using 6RD demonstrates an operational need for a bigger than
normal allocation. In the discussion people were generally
in favor of these big IPv6 allocations even if it meant giving
a large ISP a whole /21 block just for 6RD.