Let's just go around in circles, shall we?

[Paul Ferguson]

At 04:21 PM 2/2/97 -0800, Karl Auerbach wrote:

>> ARIN, as well as the other registries, already caveat allocations by
>> stating that they may not be routable in the global Internet. What's
>> the issue here?
>
>The issue is that one may jump through many hoops to get a block from ARIN
>only to discover that some ISP has decided to not accept or honor routing
>information that would allow that block to be reached from smaller or
>larger parts of the net. 
>

ARIN cannot look into a crystal ball & predict whether a given prefix
is routable in the Internet, and frankly, should *not* be in the business
of predictions. This is simply not practical, and attempting to assume
that one could actually do this is not in touch with reality.

>ARIN, by virtue of its granting authority, could, if it chose to do so,
>impose a condition upon all grantees that they avoid arbitrary or
>capricious treatment of other grantees.  [Kim just sent a note indicating
>that, at least at the outset, ARIN would not be imposing such a
>condition.]
>

This is, in my humble opinion, common sense, as well as conventional
wisdom.

>It's kinda fun listening to the ISP voices saying "we wanna be
>independent, we wanna be the final authority, we wanna make our own
>choices without regard for anyone else."
>

ISP's can already do this; if they can justify PI address space, they
can decide to go to the InterNIC to obtain it. Once again, the fact
that it may or may not be routable is an orthogonal issue. Under the
ARIN proposal, the only functional difference is now they will pay
for the services rendered by ARIN in obtaining address space directly
from ARIN.

- paul