On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Scott Huddle wrote:
If different providers were to sell routing "slots" on their network such that an ISP could guarantee that their announcements would be accepted (regardless of address length) this would seem to solve the problems of both those that can't "justify" a big block and those of the providers that want to control the use of their resources on their network as well.
It appears that you're primary argument is one of fairness and level playing field for all comers regardless of size, and I think this is a worthy goal if it can be done technically.
I think this is more than a technical problem. It also impacts relationships (i.e. peering) and it becomes a business issue since money is changing hands. For this to work a core network provider would have to do several things. 1. set a fee schedule for routing slots and determine what the conditions of sale will be so that every Tom, Dick and Jane doesn't try to buy a /24 slot for their PowerMAC webserver with ISDN TA attached. 2. negotiate the peering relationships with at least the other core network providers such that they can provide a reasonably certain guarantee that the announcements will be accepted by their peers. Note that this does *NOT* neccessarily require settlements. 3. set up a feedback loop so that routing table growth does not go crazy. IMHO this would need to involve some sort of a quota system whereby the group of core network providers who have agreed to listen to purchased announcements will also agree how many such slots per month can be sold based solely on technical considerations. The sales force would then be given an inventory of routing table slots that they can sell and when they are gone, they are gone. 4. deal with antitrust issues. Because of the close coordination needed by the core network providers to make this work, as soon as prices for routing slots stabilize there will be charges of price-fixing. This needs to be dealt with up-front, and IMHO, it is the single most important issue because a) failure to do it properly will cause severe financial penalties to hit the providers and b) doing it properly will cost significant dollars in lawyers fees. Also, this becomes an international trade issue. North America covers more than one country and, as you are all well aware, most major European and Asian and Australian providers do peer at North American IXP's or are planning to do so in the near future. I wouldn't expect to see any quick solution to this problem but it is probably a good idea to start looking at the technical and other issues right now. It looks like the next generation of routers will be upon us by the middle of the year and the limits on routing table size will be significantly increased. The question is, what happens next? Simply loosening up the filters to allow /20's or /21's will not create as many problems as it solves. People whose equipment cannot handle routing tables with 80,000 - 90,000 routes will not be happy and their could be some serious antitrust implications as a result. The bottom line is that we need to have a consensus on how to take the next step and this mailing list is probably not the best place to work it out. The business and legal issues really belong on PIARA. Send subscribe to the address piara-request@apnic.net Note that in the past, PIARA has been focussed on the idea of selling IP allocations but that idea really never caught on and is basically dead for now. But the idea of selling routing table slots was never discussed much on PIARA so there is really no point in reading the list archives. Just join the list and start posting. Michael Dillon - Internet & ISP Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-250-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com