Paul A Vixie <paul@vix.com> writes: I think this would be a bad thing. NS needs a watchdog.
I fully agree with the latter and not necessarily with the former. At least for the Internet *number* registration part there are two working examples where both the watching and funding is done by the region's ISPs in a very open and cooperative manner: APNIC and the RIPE NCC. This works well because the ISPs realise that they have to organise this together, whether they like cooperating or not. I do not see any reason why such a model could not work for the InterNIC or at least the number registration part of it. To me it just seems like a question of the providers realising that they have to organise some things together and getting their act together. I am quite sure that NSF would happily let go and I expect that NSI would be willing to talk as there are benefits in such a scheme for them too. But then I am a naive European and not so closely involved with N.A. politics. If however someone wants to make this work I will happily help them by explaining our experiences. Daniel