Policy Statement on Address Space Allocations

    From: Geoff Huston <G.Huston at aarnet.edu.au>

    it will be economically infeasible IF we continue with this strange
    system of zero dollar interconnections we use as a peering model. ...
    In the same way that giving away IP addresses and giving away IP
    routing can only be described as a very bad case of irrational behaviour,
    especially when the underlying resource is under stress ... then I'd also
    note that giving away transit is similarly a case completely irrational
    behaviour!  All this points to a desperate need for a more realistic
    economic structure to be used within a number of key aspects of Internet
    infrastructure.

Geoff, while I sort of agree with you, please note that the current "free"
models in all these areas do have one real advantage, which is that they are
simple. Perhaps we will need "more realistic economic structure[s]", but I can
more or less guarantee you that those will be more complex as well.

Also, that complexity has a cost, which also has to be figured in. (The
classic example is long-distance telephone service, where the cost of creting
the bill is said to be far larger than the cost of the underlying service.)

Finally, given past history, I suspect that the 'Net community, and
particularly the 'Net technical community, is going to have a painful
transition, on the emotional level and others, to this brave new world of more
commercial structures, and the inevitable technical impacts that causes. That
has certainly been the case in every such step in the past...

	Noel