ARIN Proposal

[Kent Crispin]

David R. Conrad allegedly said:
>
> Karl,
>
> >Therefore, every ISP must be an ARIN "associate" if they have an ounce of
> >sense, and they must be able to get those magic /19s (or larger if they can
> >justify them).
> >
> >To fail to provide that on a *level* playing field is going to invite
> >lawsuits
>
> Currently within APNIC and RIPE-NCC, if an organization pays the
> membersip fees, we allocate (or reserve for) them a /19 block.  While
> at APNIC (and I assume RIPE) we do try to discourage everyone (not
> just end users) from getting provider independent blocks from the
> registry (we have a form letter that says "routers are falling over,
> blah blah blah"), we will do so if they insist (and they pay the
> membership fee).
>
> In both our cases (not wanting to speak for RIPE-NCC, but I believe this
> to be the case -- I'm sure they'll blast me if I'm off base), the fees have
> (apparently) had the effect of discouraging smaller ISPs from obtaining
> blocks from the registries directly.
>
> Do you consider this a level playing field?
>
> Regards,
> -drc

Clearly it is not a level playing field -- it is an unlevel playing
field, designed to promote a certain hierarchical structure, motivated
by perceived technological limitations.

Other approaches are possible, but the consequences are thought to be
bad -- for example, you could charge a single flat fee per address per
year.  It is thought that the result of such a policy is that the
backbone routers would melt, or something similar, and the internet
would become unusable..  OTOH, it would create much stronger pressures
for improved router technology and perhaps accelerate a migration to
IPv6.

--
Kent Crispin                            "No reason to get excited",
kent at songbird.com,kc at llnl.gov           the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E  87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F