Address space for individuals

On Thu, 19 May 1994 12:23:33 +0200  Erik-Jan Bos wrote:
> As Last Resort IR for The Netherlands I received a request for address
> space (one C network) from an individual. The person requesting address
> space tells me he has several machines at home able to talk IP and he
> wants to interconnect them.
> 
> Since he has plans to connect his LAN at home to the Internet some day in
> the future he asks for an official IP network number (which means RFC1597
> is of no help in this case).
> 
> IMHO, this is a question which we will see in an increasingly frequency
> in the near future. Think of what happens if IP functionality is built in
> to Microsoft software...
> 
> I'd like to know whether you have received requests like this before,
> and how you aproached this issue, since I think "we all" should have a
> common attitude in Europe (better: world-wide) on this.

A couple of random thoughts:
- If this person is who I think he is, then his current involvement
  in TCP/IP is Licensed Amateur Radio related. A class A network number 
  (44.0.0.0) has been designated for this purpose on a worldwide scale.
  They also use a distributed addressing scheme. To find out the
  local IR in that case, ask the worldwide coordinator:
  Brian Kantor <brian at ucsd.edu>
  Please note that this organisation is very efficient in assigning
  address space because they assign *one* IP address per person
  in the default case (people can get more if they ask; most don't).
  The AMPRnet has been using classless routing, CIDR etc for some years now.
  (CB applications are *not* valid for network 44 because of strict
  AUP rules as defined by the government. I know that, at least in the 
  Netherlands, CB persons have nicked network 27.0.0.0 for the same
  application, but this number has not been assigned to them)
- If this person only has a few hosts, then it is probably a good idea to
  ask him to renumber once he connects to the Internet. I don't believe
  that renumbering 3 PC's would be that much of a problem.
  1597 might be useful after all..

No comments on the general case of individuals asking for IP address
space. I hope that my ideas help in this specific case though.

Geert Jan