[address-policy-wg] Policy proposal: #alpha: TLD Anycast Allocation Policy

On 24-mrt-05, at 10:31, Wilfried Woeber, UniVie/ACOnet wrote:

>> No, what it means is: "People who inject routes in the global routing
>> table, for whatever reason, increase the cost of operating routers. So
>> for reasons of fairness and as a mild deterrent, these people should
>> bear a generous share of the costs associated with operating the RIR
>> infrastructure."

>   Again, this implies the existence of some sort of cross-domain funds-
>   transfers.

No, it explicitly states that that doesn't exist.

>   As there is no direct and transparent relationship between
>   ensuring uniqueness of address space blocks (RIR business) and those
>   covering the cost of implementing the routing layer for the global
>   Internet,

Yes, I said that.

>  it would simply be an address tax raised by the RIRs.

RIR operation costs money. This money has to be recovered somehow. The 
only thing I'm saying is that special address holders should pay for 
this relative to their contribution to the global routing table. There 
are of course other ways to go about this, such as make the fees 
dependent on the amount of work the RIR has to do. But I think my 
suggestion is better.

>> A good way to do this would be to require everyone who wants such a
>> block to become a RIR and to charge address based costs only on the
>> number of blocks and not on their size.

>   No, see above.

Why wouldn't they have to become a LIR (yes, typo)?

>   And, I presume that addresses would only be distributed by way of an 
> LIR
>   anyway. So where is the point?

Today you can get v4 PI space without becoming a LIR.

>> Note that I'm not saying these people should pay an artificially
>> inflated fee (although deep in my heart I would love that), just their
>> fair share.

>   With your definition of fair for something you don't like :-) 
> Scary...

I'm very fair with what I like and dislike, don't worry.  :-)

The thing is that routes in the routing table is like polution of the 
environment. We know we can't completely stop it, but it helps if there 
are monetary incentives so that people at least consider the 
alternatives. Don't forget that DNS anycasting isn't an essential 
technique, it's just an optimization. However, if the plus side ends up 
at the TLD operator and the minus side at the internet users at large, 
this optimization won't be very optimal.

>> It shouldn't be cheaper to obtain a special prefix than a regular one.

>   Indeed, and then it should not be smaller or, rather, more difficult 
> and
>   risky to use.

Nope, these attributes have nothing to do with the fees involved. 
Address space isn't for sale.

>> Also, there should be limits on the number of special prefixes.

>   Ahem, how many - and why?

To keep the global routing table from growing too quickly. The exact 
number is hard to determine, but something like 10% of the existing 
routing table per year seems reasonable, maybe a bit more the first few 
years.