ARIN Proposal

[Karl Denninger]

> > > > For any ISP that sells any of those "tied" services, any move which makes it
> > > > un-feasible (and by that I mean any event which causes SIGNIFICANT barriers
> > > > to entry to be raised) is IMHO a per-se anti-trust problem, at least in the
> > > > United States.
> > >
> > >       I think it's a technical fact of life.
> > >
> > >       If you move, you have to notify your friends, change your mailing
> > > address everywhere it appears, change your phone number, maybe drive
> > > further to work, and so on and so forth. Is this grounds for an action
> > > against your landlord?
> > >
> > >       DS
> >
> > That's not the analog here.
> >
> > If you move, *I* don't have to change *MY* phone number.
>
> Karl, any of us who have been through one or more area code renumbering
> instances knows this is not true. It can happen, it does happen, just the
> Internet has smaller prefixes. Forced by at outside organization to change
> with no recourse or cost recovery. It just so happens that the people
> making the decisions are almost always an arm of the state government.
>
> Jerry

Ah, but that gores all oxen equally, and has nothing to do with supplier
relationships.

The restraint of trade issue here is that you create a tying situation
between vendors and customers (ok if contractually agreed upon) which then
extends to INDIRECT customers (NOT ok).

Example:

I'm an ISP.
I have address space from an upstream provider.
I sell you a T1, and give you some address space (which I got myself).

Now, a year later, I *FIRE* that upstream provider (because their connectivity
sucks, I don't like the way the President cuts his hair, etc.  The reason
isn't relavent to the discussion)

*YOU*, as MY customer, have to renumber because *I* did something that is in
BOTH OF OUR best interest as customers (me directly and you indirectly).

Disrupting YOUR connectivity (which renumbering does) may in fact give rise
to a cause of action towards me as the provider who sold the link to you!


This result acts to FORCE me to retain that connection, even though the
quality may be inferior (or, in fact, not just inferior but blatently
unacceptable!)

It also gives the SUPPLIER the ability to raise his or her prices, or
constrain terms in the future, without ANY effective recourse.  That is,
the supplier is in the position where the customer CANNOT walk away because
if the customer does *HIS* customers may be put out of business or have
their operations severely disrupted -- even though he can find better
service (or a better price) elsewhere.

This may be an illegal tying arrangement in the United States.  Until
someone litigates the issue where the judge or jury would come down is
unknown -- but the fact is that if you read the Sherman act (and others)
you'll find language that certainly makes it appear that this is a blatent
violation of those laws.

"Engineering necessity" isn't a defense to this, because engineering
necessity *DOESN'T EXIST* at the level we're talking about here.  If ISPs
get /19s from the appropriate NIC then the problem goes away, and further,
doing so will NOT break the routing tables or network core hardware.

Second, if you're multi-homed anything smaller than a /19 in 206 and above
is USELESS because it won't be routeable on the second connection!  So if
you intend to, or are, multi-homed you MUST have Provider-Independant space
*ANYWAY* for the addres space to be useful *AT ALL*.

This has ALWAYS been true, and it ALWAYS will be.

I'm not arguing that at the *END USER* attachment level people have to be
able to "take it with them" -- at least not for the /24 or /23 crowd.  If
you're big enough to need a /19 or more, then you are, for all intents and
purposes, a direct ISP analog whether or not you sell service to others.

--
--
Karl Denninger (karl at MCS.Net)| MCSNet - The Finest Internet Connectivity
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