Hi,

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Here's an idea. Let new ISP's reserve large blocks (say /16's) in 65/8, 66/8, .... but don't let them actually use these addresses on the global Internet. Then, the ISP can run a Network Address Translation gateway and

Why not use net 10 and leave the NATs in?

You can't possibly be serious here. No way NATs scale to multihomed, and they don't speak BGP. They aren't heavy-duty backbone routers. They're designed for small to medium sized corporate LANs, not ISP's.

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Of course, there is one little problem with this.... bash$ whois 65 Air Force Logistics Command (ASN-LOGNET) LOGNET-AS 65 bash$ whois 96 Army Finance and Accounting Office (ASN-JTELS) JTELS-BEN1-AS 96 How did these guys get such big chunks of address space reserved?

You're probably gonna regret that one: you're looking at AS numbers, not networks. Now, let see how many people tell you the same thing :-).

:-)

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I think that the fundamental problem here is that the Internic is fundamentally clueless about important issues such as global routing

Bullshit. The InterNIC is very much aware of global routing issues.

I'm not 100% convinced of this. The InterNIC is somewhat unresponsive to startup providers who are starting multi-homed. It took me almost two weeks to convince them that I needed routable space, and I had to allocate a bunch of networks to various internal uses to do it. Even though I already had bilateral peering agreements at MAE West with about 10 other providers, including several of the big ones. Currently, there are only three major providers that we know of at MAE west that we do not peer with. Two are a matter of time, and one is a policy issue. (on their side)

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and *BUSINESS* issues.

What business issues are you talking about?

The only BUSINESS issues the InterNIC really seems to be aware of from what I have seen are: Lining the pockets of the gray men Ridiculous attempts to map trademarks onto DNS space

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They are behaving a lot like a government bureaucracy or a regulatory agency.

The registries are simply following the policy as defined by the Internet community at large. Read RFC 1466, 1814, and the latest internet draft on allocation policy. If the Internet community were to define new policies, the registries would implement those as well. Currently, there is a small bit of contradiction in what small ISPs and end users want and what the larger ISPs (and what is necessary to keep the Internet from partitioning) want. But, both sides are more than happy to scream and whine at the registries for not doing the "right" thing.

Yes and no. The InterNIC changes policy, templates, and procedures quite often over the last 3 years, often without notice, and enforces the new policies quite rudely, even if they contradict the last policy you received from them. Example: Submit template to update domain Get response back saying "This domain is already allocated" Make phone call explaining that template was an UPDATE, as stated on template Get response saying "Then don't submit a template, just send us a note." Send note Get response "Updates complete" Next weeK, Submit another update note for a different domain Get a response back saying "Updates require submission of a template" ARRRGGGGGHHHHH!! There are REAL problems with the InterNIC, and we need to address them. Is the InterNIC doing an OK job, by and large yes. Are there things wrong, YES. Are the things that are wrong the InterNIC's fault or the policy InterNIC was given? Some of each.

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I don't really see how this can be fixed with the current system of having a US government agency writing a contract with a private US company to provide a fundamental international infrastructure service!

The US government agency could get out of the way, but the squeals of outrage when InterNIC started charging US $50/year for domain name registrations leads me to believe it will be a while before any sort of rational allocation policy can be imposed.

I don't see how having the US government fund the agency really has much of an impact here. The NSF has had very little to say about HOW things are done, and merely sets the funding level. The decisions about HOW things are done are made largely by the IANA, IAB, and IETF.

Regards, -drc

Owen ----- End Included Message -----