Policy Statement on Address Space Allocations

  > Peter Galbavy <peter at demon.net> writes:
  > > Thanks for amitting at least that much ;-).
  > > Would you care to share your thoughts on less flawed paradigms
  > > that will work with current or near-future kit ({hard,firm,soft}ware for
  > > the non-british)?
  > 
  > I wish I knew. In this I am the worst type of couch potato. ....

So stop critising "paradigms" without proposing better ones or at least
research the rationales and history behind them.

  > > Yes, CIDR works if addresses are allocated *somewhat* topologically.
  > 
  > And in the case of (I am guessing) > 70% of RIPE NCC allocated addresses
  > are not. 

First you missed the emphasis on *somewhat*.  Second you are guessing wrong. 

>From both of the above it seems that you only know of and are only concerned
with your own particular situation. 

  > This is no ones "fault", just the way the policy is. Therefore
  > I say the policy is WRONG.

What is the better policy?

  > > The continental component in address space allocation is pure policy and
  > > has little to do with CIDR.  The policy only seems unreasonable when
  > > considering only the issue you raise. 
  > 
  > But it is the *primary* issue. What else is there that influences how
  > addresses are allocated in a CIDR or hierarchical way ? 

More local topology than continental one is *very* important.

  > We have e-mail for admin - it is timezone orthoganal. The existance
  > of the RIPE NCC should just be remote, local staff for the InterNIC.

Fine with me. Do RIEP and theother contributors agree? 
We can re-organise starting next week.

  > If the RIPE NCC applies a "local model" then it is not conforming
  > to the policies of IANA and the IAB that you keep referring to.

The RIPE NCC applies local policies within the boundaries of the global
policies.

  > > Personally I believe that even this issue is irrelevant for providers of
  > > the size of Demon.  It makes no difference where you get a /16 from. 
  > 
  > Except you will not, even with correct justifications, give us one for
  > our dial up services.
  > 
  > To wash some dirty laundry here ...

I could help you washing in detail but I do not think this is appropriate 
in all these fora. For the record I will summarise:

Demon is statically assigning IP addresses to dialup customers on a
large scale.  This results in adresses being used per customer and not
per dial-in port.  Obviously then number of customers is less limited
than that of dial in ports.  There is concern about the wastefulness of
this practise on a large scale and the non-linear effects it could have
on address space usage.  Hence it is *global*, read IANA, policy to
strongly discourage this practise and not to allocate more addresses
than three months worth of usage.  This is not just an NCC policy! 

Indeed we have allocated you a /19 to start with in addition to the 
address space you have been allocated for other purposes than dial up IP.  
Of course you will receive further allocations within the range of the 
above policy whenever you need them.  Of course we will do our best to 
make the further allocations aggregateable with previous ones. 

Assignments of address space by local IRs to customers have to be
registered in the RIPE (whois) database.  You have raised that your
commercial interest of keeping your customer list confidential should
outweigh this registration requirement in the case of individuals
because of the special characterisitcs of the (consumer) market you
operate in.  We have recognised that the tradeoff between the benefit of
registration and the commercial interests of individual dialup providers
is indeed special and consequently have worked with you(!), IANA and the
other regional registries to establish a global policy for this special
case.  This policy has to take into account the need for verification of
assignments since the registration requirement has been dropped and the
database is not available for verification. 

We have worked with you in this matter, you have agreed to the result. 
I think it is *very* inappropriate to publicly abuse those who have
worked with you and to throw polemics at compromises some of which you
have even suggested and all of which you have agreed to.  I will leave
the polemics for what they are. 

  > I wish I had the time, but it appears that we will have to make the
  > time to get more involed. sigh.

Yes, it is more appropriate than polemicising publicly.

  > > What we do *not* do is consider *individual* interests of some over 
  > > the ones of others.  If we would do that we would eliminate our 
  > > "raison d'etre". 
  > 
  > Why not. We are not a communist society are we ? Each individual member
  > of RIPE have their own unique requirements in a commercial and
  > academically challenging world. We have a USP (Unique Selling Point) of
  > giving our paying customers there own IP address (OK - it is not
  > unique, but close enough). We have built propretary technology that
  > allows our users to use *any* of our dial in points and get the same
  > service, with the same IP number etc etc, and as one of our primary USPs
  > we cannot allow the RIPE NCC to try to change that.
  > ...
  > The RIPE NCC model probably would work if it took into account that
  > fact that its members are (on the whole) commercial organisations
  > that sell differing products and services and have different
  > requirements of the NCC. This does not appear to be the case.

You have received sufficient address space for your present needs
and you have been assured that -unless there are policy changes- you
will receive enough for your future needs. The same policy is
applied to everyone.

--- Polemic mode on ----

I have the slight suspicion that for you the only good model is
one that does exactly what *you* want, everyone else be damned.

--- Polemic mode off ----

Daniel