On Tuesday, February 25, 1997 2:06 AM, Avi Freedman[SMTP:freedman@netaxs.com] wrote: @ > But now we are receiving many petitions from much smaller ISP's @ > asking for BGP connections. These small customers are going to announce @ > few networks (a couple of /24, or some /23). We have no problems to @ > configure our routers with more BGP peerings, as our routers can support @ > it, but I'm a little bit concerned about the impact of such small @ > announcements to the whole Internet. @ @ I think the general feeling is that if the customer is multi-homed, there's @ going to be another route announcement for them anyway - whether it's a @ /23, /24, or /16 or /17. @ In my opinion, ISPs start at the wrong end of the business. We should try to encourage future ISPs to start as registries BEFORE they buy a lot of modems, routers and other stuff. If the airlines ran like the Internet, they would encourage pilots to buy their own planes, to transport customers, and after getting enough hours, they would teach them about air traffic control, navigation, weather, radios, etc. Because there has been a lack of emphasis on growing the IP address registries, and domain registries by the InterNIC, people do not get an opportunity to train in those important functions first, before jumping into the cockpit. As a net result of this, it is hard to find ISPs who are growing into the registry business. I suppose some ISPs do not see that there is any money in that end of the business. I also feel that there is a lack of education in this critical area. If NANOG members have any influence on the direction the Internet takes, I suggest that they help new ISPs first learn the registry end of the business. One way to do this is to help establish IP address registries in your area and the training programs needed to allow people to handle allocations as skilled professionals. There is not much capital required to launch someone as a registry, compared to the capital required to be an ISP. The key ingredient needed is education and NANOG seems like a natural group to help people get started. With the various charging models coming out of the ARIN discussions <http://www.arin.net>, there should be a lot of food for thought on how a few people in an office with some PCs, paper, pencils and telephones can become registries and support themselves. Once established as a registry, these skilled professionals could grow and branch out to add other services. Who knows, they could even become ISPs, and if they do, then they would have a firm foundation of registry training to support their growth and to better serve the Internet -- Jim Fleming Unir Corporation e-mail: JimFleming@unety.net JimFleming@unety.s0.g0 (EDNS/IPv8)