At 11:56 AM -0500 12/17/98, Peter Polasek wrote:

I apologize in advance if this is an ISP 101 question. Is there any reasonable method for acquiring a registered Class C address these days?

ISPs have to start somewhere! Let me suggest rephrasing the question a bit. No one can get class A, B, or C addresses any longer, because the concept of "classful" addresses is dead. Address space allocation is on a CIDR block basis, where a class C would be equivalent to a /24, a class B to a /16, and a class A to an /8. If you need the equivalent of two class C blocks, your requirement is for a /23 CIDR block. A starting point is Hank Nussbacher's CIDR FAQ at http://www.ibm.net.il/~hank/cidr.html. We are opening a data center in England and need at

least 2 registered Class C addresses IP for the production network. Last time I checked, subnetted class C registered addresses were still available (within the Class A range), but pure Class C addresses were not. We very strongly prefer to avoid subnetting addresses because this becomes extremely difficult maintain when the network becomes large (as this will).

See RFC2050, the policy for address allocation. I doubt that any address registry would consider a request for address space that is not subnetted because it is inconvenient to maintain. Take a look at my tutorial at the last NANOG meeting, which is on the NANOG web site at http://www.nanog.org/mtg-9811/ppt/berk/index.htm. I describe some approaches to semi-automating ISP address space management. For a somewhat broader look, I've just published a book that deals with address justification and planning, _Designing Address Architectures for Routing & Switching_ (Macmillan Technical Publishing ISBN #1-57870-059-0). Major online and physical bookstores just started making it available, although Amazon is correcting the title. Cheers, Howard