-----Original Message-----
From: Mathew Butler [mailto:mbutler@tonbu.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 1:37 PM
To: 'Roeland Meyer'; 'Patrick Greenwell'; Steven M. Bellovin
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
Subject: RE: Broken Internet? [OT]

*ponders*

Is it possible that our technical solutions are at least contributorially responsible for the economic slowdown?  (Small businesses can't get connected, so large numbers of high-money dotcoms get massive amounts of funding, but few of them can make any money, so their debts skyrocket, and the massive power shifts happen?)

Don't mind me, I'm just pondering.

-Mat

-----Original Message-----
From: Roeland Meyer [mailto:rmeyer@mhsc.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 12:53 PM
To: 'Patrick Greenwell'; Steven M. Bellovin
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
Subject: Broken Internet?

> From: Patrick Greenwell [mailto:patrick@cybernothing.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 11:29 AM

> to change the fact that these alternative root server
> networks exist and
> that the Internet still works, mostly(as I'm sure you'd agree
> it's always a little broken.)

That is an understatement (a little broken). I have just been introduced to
one of those broken areas, the hard way.

Given:
1. Prefix filtering at /20.
2. Most small busineses limited to /24, by policy/procedure.
3. Multi-homing requirements for multi-office businesses (many SOHO's).
4. Impending business failure of many DSL ISPs.
5. Total lack of responsibile behavior among DSL access providers.

It is next to impossible for a small business to have reliable internet
connectivity without moving into a large co-lo. Even if they can afford the
multiple T1's, they can't get portable IP addresses that will be advertised
reliably. Many of them need, at most, a pair of /24's and ARIN, knowing
this, will not issue them portable blocks larger than /24 without severe
justification requirements.

Many of you might think that is okay, but what if their upstream dies off
(as recently happened to MHSC). In the current day and age, business stops
until they get reconnected. This disconnect is at minimum, 4-6 weeks, under
the best of circumstances. As one vendor recently pointed out in their
adverts, most businesses, down for more than 14 days, will never survive.
More importantly, such an outage flat-lines the revenue picture for that
entire fiscal quarter, for the unlucky victim.

What we have today is a manufactured dependence on a single upstream
provider and no way to multi-home. Even co-lo boils down to single-home
dependency.

Yes, there are a bunch of hacks to work around this problem. But, that is
exactly what they are ... hacks. They are not something I could build a
sustainable business around.

Any business needs:
1. to be able to change upstream providers without having to renumber.
2. to be able to change access providers without having to suffer
multi-month down-times.
3. to be able to have its net-block(s) visible regardless of which ISPs they
are currently using.

Currently the only ones that can do that are those that;
1. Are large enough to justify a /20 (begging the question of how they got
that large).
2. Can afford their own datacenter.

It looks like our technical solutions are raising unreasonable barriers to
entry for small businesses.