[note reply-to and cc] David,
While everyone is entitled to their opinion, ARIN is no magic bullet and is the wrong answer for our industry.
I don't think anyone is arguing it is a magic bullet. Whether it is the right or wrong answer would depend, I guess, on your view of the role of the US government in an international industry.
I still assert that there is *nothing* ARIN will give me for my $10,000 per year allocation fee
Recently, at the APNIC meeting held in Hong Kong, the APNIC membership voted to modify the APNIC pricing structure, the procedures by which APNIC allocates the initial block of address space to new ISPs, and whether or not APNIC should operate a service that could conceivably compete with services offered by the membership. How exactly do _you_ influence how InterNIC operates?
that I don't get right now from the tax dollars I currently pay to support the National Science Foundation.
Your tax dollars are NOT funding address allocation.
* It will take money that could have gone to support my network, my employees, and my customers, and instead divert that money to a yet another bureaucracy.
TANSTAAFL. Somebody has to pay for registry services. Right now, they are being paid for by the domain name charges. Do you really want something as critical to your business as address allocations dependent on NSI given the myriad lawsuits against NSI over domain issues?
* It will increase my costs, which will have to be passed along to my customers, which will effect my business.
Let's look at this a bit (simplifying and not to pick on US.NET, but...): Size Fee Amt of space Per address per year fee ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Small $2500/year /24 - /19 $9.77 - $0.31 Medium $5000/year >/19 - /16 $0.61 - $0.08 Large $10K/year >/16 - /14 $0.15 - $0.04 X-Large $20K/year >/14 $0.08 -> $0.00 So, lets say you have a customer to which you'll be assigning a /22. Presumably you wouldn't eat the costs if they were a significant portion of the income you derive from a customer. Given you indicate you'd fall in to the "Large" category, this would mean you'll be passing along a US $3.41 to $12.80 per month cost increase or less that what you charge for secondarying the customer's domain in the worst case. To be more complete: % of US.NET's Connect costs* monthly "Evil Registry Surcharge" 128K/56K T1 Prefix min max min max min max ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ /32 $0.0033 $0.0125 0.0011% 0.0042% 0.0003% 0.0013% /31 $0.0067 $0.0250 0.0023% 0.0085% 0.0007% 0.0025% /30 $0.01 $0.05 0.0045% 0.0169% 0.0013% 0.0050% /29 $0.02 $0.10 0.0090% 0.0339% 0.0027% 0.0101% /28 $0.05 $0.20 0.0181% 0.0678% 0.0054% 0.0201% /27 $0.10 $0.40 0.0362% 0.1356% 0.0107% 0.0402% /26 $0.21 $0.80 0.0723% 0.2712% 0.0214% 0.0804% /25 $0.42 $1.60 0.1446% 0.5424% 0.0429% 0.1608% /24 $0.85 $3.20 0.2893% 1.0847% 0.0858% 0.3216% /23 $1.70 $6.40 0.5785% 2.1695% 0.1715% 0.6432% /22 $3.41 $12.80 1.1571% 4.3390% 0.3430% 1.2864% /21 $6.82 $25.60 2.3141% 8.6780% 0.6861% 2.5729% /20 $13.65 $51.20 4.6282% 17.3559% 1.3722% 5.1457% (*) connect costs taken from http://www.us.net/prices/serv-business.html Also, while I hesitate to mention it, a possible implication: to avoid the ERS to those nasty registry people, maybe your customers would only ask for the amount of address space they NEED?
* It will not allow me to increase the size of my current address allocations any faster than the current InterNIC slow start policy allows
NOT "InterNIC slow start" -- ALL registries must use slow start and besides, it was originally implemented at RIPE. I will note in passing: in the case of APNIC, the membership voted to change our allocation policy such that it DID directly impact the amount of address space a new ISP obtains. Of course, we still have to abide by the global restrictions of RFC 2050, but the methods by which the registries follow those restrictions are at the descretion of the membership. Presumably this will be the case for ARIN as well.
This is equivalent to holding a gun to our head and extorting us to pay the $10,000 (or more) annual fee.
Does your electric company extort money from you too?
the InterNIC made 60 million dollars PROFIT last year issuing domain names (while funding the assignment of IP address space AT THE SAME TIME). This has to be the biggest money grab in history -- 60 million dollars isn't enough for one monopoly to make? Unbelievable.
You do understand that ARIN is an attempt to make address allocation independent of NSI and under the discretion of the people who need the resource ARIN allocates, right?
The inference here is that by creating a costly new bureaucracy, all our problems will go away. I see absolutely NO evidence of any legal or procedural mechanism that will prevent turmoil.
Please see RIPE-NCC and APNIC. There doesn't appear to be much turmoil in either of those organizations.
There is only one IPv4 address space, so the concept of "alternate registries" (aka, like the alternate TLD proposals) has no relevence to address space allocation. Comparing address space to domain name allocation is comparing apples to oranges.
No. The one thing domain name delegation and address allocation have in common is that they both reply on the Internet community to be implemented. If the eDNS crowd ever get a significant following (e.g., a major service provider takes them seriously), they will be relevant. If an AntiNIC becomes established, it would have exactly the same requirements for relevancy.
I put an allocation request in last Monday and received my new allocation Thursday. Even if allocation requests could be turned around in one-hour, paying an annual $10K fee is not worth it to speed the process up three days. Think about it.
Scenario: NSI loses one of the lawsuits against it. NSI must pay damages, etc. NSI declares bankruptcy. How long will it take you to get your IP address space? Of course, this would never happen.
There is nothing about ARIN that says we will all be in concensus. If anything, there will be tremendous dischord because we will have hundreds of ISPs voicing their opinions at the semi-annual ARIN meetings. The current NSF sponsored system does not foster this level of turmoil. If anything, ARIN will turn the currently stable IP address policy mechanism into a semi-annual slug fest.
I'm surprised you take such a dim view of democracy and such a positive view of (arguably enlightened) autocracy.
There is one -- the same one that has been funded by the NSF since the mid 1980's. Why change something that has worked so well in the past?
The cooperative agreement that created InterNIC (in 1992, not the mid-80's) expires in '98. NSF has (in the past) been uninterested in supporting production services (they are research oriented after all). As such, it is reasonable to assume they'll not be particularly interested in continuing in their oversight of the Americas registry system.
APNIC and RIPE are not run by governmental entities
Neither is the registration portion of InterNIC. Is is operated by a commercial entity under a cooperative agreement with the NSF.
They get that address space from the current system that is under control of the NSF.
No. We get our address space from the IANA, which was funded by DARPA.
Comparing APNIC and RIPE to the current US model is not fair or accurate.
True. Where APNIC and RIPE members have direct input into how their registries are operated, American (and South African) ISPs are subject to the political winds of the US government. Where APNIC and RIPE members control how resources are expended, American (and South African) ISPs must abide by a commercial company's decisions as (theoretically) moderated by the NSF. Where APNIC and RIPE members take responsibility for the administration of the resource on which they depend, American (and South African) ISPs rely on the US government to play mommy.
I believe (as a US citizen) that the Internet is strategic to the United States, and control over the address space should remain with the US Government.
And just how does the US government control the address space now?
Giving control over this strategic asset to a non-profit organization that is beholden to nobody is foolishness.
Please see what 501c6 means. The non-profit organization would be beholden to the industry it supports.
Charging for IP addresses will raise the cost of an Internet connection. Raising costs will not improve the health of a growing and vibrant industry -- it is anathma to our industry.
I'm surprised you, as a businessman, would have this attitude towards government intervention in free trade. Oh, right, as long as it is a subsidy its OK.
Lets work together to reduce cost, not increase cost.
And how would you go about doing this, given you have no input as to how the registry operates? Regards, -drc