Let us all bend over, apply the Vaseline...

[Bob Atkins]

Paul,

> 
> I'd suggest that you take some time and read the archives for this list.
> 
> Perhaps after doing so, in the future you'll think about making such
> flippant remarks; doing so is a clear indicator that you have no idea
> how complex the issues really are.
> 

I definitely took the time to scan the archives from 1/17/97 to present.
I also read the FAQ published on the www.arin.net. What I saw was a lot
of heated disagreement intermixed with justifcations of why ARIN must
come into existence.

Yes, I have seen that these issues have been covered and discussed into
the ground in the list archives but that shouldn't mean that the issue
is dead or buried. Clearly, reading the list archives I'm not alone in
my opinion. However, the ARIN club supporters seem to dominate this
list. I should not have expected otherwise.

ARIN will be in a position to be influenced substantially and will be
able to make life for smaller ISPs even tougher than it is today.
Today getting IP space from the InterNIC is like squeezing blood from a
stone for smaller ISPs. However, it is very evident that large ISPs
have no problem getting enormous address assignments and give those
addresses out with little or no effort to verify the customer need.

I have to concur that the present address assignment limitations
imposed by the InterNIC are also ridiculous and it pains me that the
same people making my life miserable today will be in positions of
greater power and autonomy in ARIN without the appearance of any higher
authority to or mitigate their actions. The entire IP registery concept
needs to be more distributed. The concept of leasing IP addresses that
are controlled by ARIN is troubling to say the least.

While ARIN will supposedly not be handling IPv6 space I am not
convinced that it won't once IPv6 address space comes into use.  With
IPv6 ARIN will have an enormous pool of address space. The annual
recurring fees generated based on the proposed amounts would be
criminal for a non-profit organization.

Besides my argument is simple - *Who* decided to create ARIN and why
isn't such a function put up for bid on a recurring basis? No one
organization should have control of such an important resource for an
indefinite period of time. The IP address management function should be
put up for competitive bid. Better yet the entire registery issue should
be further distributed or made highly automated so as not to require
any significant resources for management.

Consider the way ethernet addresses are doled out. A manufacturer
applies for a block - pays a *one time* nominal fee and thats it. Or
consider the way telephone numbers are handled - a one time fee to
Bellcore and bang you have 10,000 numbers. The entire concept of leasing
IP address space is so open to potential abuse it just isn't funny.

Sure there would be a board of directors for ARIN, but who are you
kidding, politics is then same everywhere.  Sooner or later incumbents
will be re-elected, big business will eventually or even initially
control it and there will be no means to guarantee that smaller
organizations will have fair treatment.

Besides ARIN will be a monopoly - plain and simple, and it will be
accountable to who?? Who will provide a balance when ARIN goes out
of control?

What is more absurd about all of this is the fact that ARIN would not
be in control of the Routing Arbiter's database so in effect they would
simply be responsible for in-arpa services and thats all. So how do they
intend to enforce their annual fees. Turn off in-arpa services? While
that would be inconvenient it certainly wouldn't stop things from
working.

The argument for a T1 not being able to handle the in-arpa statements
is valid. I'm not suggesting that they all be hosted in one place. The
root in-addr servers are already diversified and that diversification
could be continued in the form of competitive bids to provide the root
server services. And lets face it, the in-addr load on the root servers
is probably not so great that it would cost anything more than say
$5,000/year in actual costs.

What really burns me is the entire concept of a *recurring* fee for the
address space. The telco industry doesn't handle telephone numbers that
way. Only the government doles out national resources on a leased basis
and recently the FCC has gone to simply selling radio spectrum
outright. As fas as I'm concerned IP space is like radio spectrum. It
is a finite resource and it should be managed in such a way as to
ensure equitable and fair access to address space to both large and
small businesses.  The fees currently proposed are a drop in the bucket
for larger organizations but they are far more significant to smaller
ones.

I want to clarify that I'm not opposed to paying in some form for
universal resources. The problem is that larger more well funded
businesses can easily outbid the smaller guys. That is exactly what
has happend with the FCC spectrum autions. Do you think a small business
can possibly afford to bid $100-$200M for radio spectrum in a metro
area?

The idea of a private agency having so much control over such an
important resource just really turns my stomach.

I'm not opposed to paying recurring costs, but at $2500/year for a /19
that is simply ridiculous! As an ISP I would be more than willing
to pay an annual fee for address management but that fee should be 
the same regardless of how much address space I use. I do think it is
reasonable to charge a fixed up front fee for a block of address space
as long as the fees are sensible and I don't mean cheap, just sensible.

Large IP address block holders should be required to provide root
in-addr services. That would be a reasonable way of ensuring that large
IP address users also contribute to the overall functioning of the
Internet as a whole and will simultaneously diversify the root server
load.

In fact the concept of contributing so called shared services to the
Internet as a whole based on the consumption of universal resources like
IP addresses and even domain names would be a much more reasonable and
equitable way to handle the providing of shared services such as
root name servers which, after all is most of what needs to be
done on a continuing basis.

The entire management issue is being blown considerably out of
proportion. IP address assignments could be largely automated. Inverse
mapping the same. A website is all it takes, minimal personnel and
minimal recurring costs. The websites could be distributed along with
root server functions ensuring a high degree of availability.

The bottom line is that some common services are required to sustain
the Internet and I am willing to pay for those services. However, what
I am seeing in both the domain name registery and now the IP regsitery
is this concept of centralization instead of diversification. Control
and money. That combination is not good for anyone but the few at the
core.

---
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