[address-policy-wg] Spectrum and IP address reservations

On Jul 20, 2009, at 1:49 PM, David Conrad wrote:

> Tom,
>
> On Jul 20, 2009, at 4:28 AM, tvest at eyeconomics.com wrote:
>> To illustrate, I've never heard anyone claim that the *only* reason  
>> why it was a good idea to move from NCP addressing to classful IP  
>> was to enable competition.
>
> I would be quite surprised if any of the participants in that  
> transition even considered competition as a reason.
>
>> Ditto, the move from classful IP to CIDR; then as before, the  
>> prospect of continuous competition (including competition by  
>> emerging new entrants) was just one of many reasons to support the  
>> preservation of addressing and routing system openness.
>
> Err, a bit too much revisionism here.
>
> I don't recall anyone suggesting "continuous competition" as a  
> reason for moving from classfull to CIDR.  In fact, CIDR was often  
> and loudly criticized for constraining competition due to the  
> implied provider lock in. As far as I remember, people pushing the  
> transition were primarily interested in keeping their routers from  
> falling over.  CIDR was merely a short term hack to deal with the  
> proliferation of class Cs being allocated since class Bs were  
> running out.  After all, IPng was going to be the savior of all  
> things routing.
>
> I suppose you could argue that keeping the Internet working meant  
> there could be competition, but that's stretching things a bit far  
> IMHO.

Hi David,

Thanks for the response. I actually agree -- probably should have  
written that competition was never more than one of many reasons that  
someone (anyone) *might have* supported those earlier transitions.  
That said, if you look back at my original response you'll note that I  
was actually arguing *against* transition rationales based narrowly on  
"competition" questions. The alternative that I proposed was  
transition to preserve the "openness of the internet addressing and  
routing system," especially to new entrants. I think that the majority  
of reasons for supporting the previous transitions (i.e., previous  
impositions of new technical requirements on incumbent network  
operators), as well as for supporting IPv6, would fit neatly under  
this rubric. And while your own description of the past circumstances  
didn't use those specific terms, I believe that the phenomena of  
"proliferation of class Cs being allocated" and "class Bs running out"  
that you referred to were both driven in part by demand from initial  
allocation seekers, a.k.a. "new entrants" -- i.e., we agree on this  
point.

Of course, during any given duration the majority of newly allocated/ 
assigned IP addresses are probably going to "incumbents" (subsequent  
allocation seekers), but that's consistent with patterns of growth in  
every other industry, i.e., it's basically a demographic of  
statistical artifact of cumulative growth processes (granted, one that  
can be influenced by various policies). The important distinction, at  
least until now, is that the growth/IP addressing demand of incumbents  
was not incompatible with the continued openness of the addressing and  
routing system to non-incumbents/new entrants.

And of course, I wouldn't have expected these sorts of arguments to  
figure prominently in IETF et al. meetings and discussion back in the  
1980s-1990s. In the main, we're not a bunch of economists and policy  
makers by profession -- and even those of us who are generally know  
better than to phrase our technology and policy advocacy in such alien  
and unsympathetic terms... most of us anyway.

However, even if "openness of the internet addressing and routing  
system" was never the most popular/resonant rallying cry for specific  
technology changes, that doesn't mean that this general idea wasn't an  
important motivator or an influential part of the unspoken context.  
And even if that sounds implausible too, it still doesn't mean that  
the *fact* that such openness was preserved, intentionally or  
otherwise, didn't play an important role in the success of the system  
to date. Although the verdict of history is never truly final, to me  
industry openness looks a lot like a universal correlate (i.e., a  
necessary if not sufficient cause) behind the durability of industry  
self-governance. If that turns out to be true, then there could be a  
lot more at stake in the current transition tussle than just the fate  
of the IP address registries.

Regards,

TV