AS number revokes

On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Stephen Burley wrote:

We aggressively followup on ASN assignments and have returned already 10
ASNs over the past 2 years:
http://www.isoc.org.il/ipolicy.html

We give ASN holders two months to achieve multihoming but understand that
problems do occur and always act leniently.  But we find that many
multihomers either go bankrupt, or can no longer afford the luxury of
multihoming so they drop one line.  When we catch them (we scan multiple
IXs looking for the announcements), we give them an email warning, then a
registered letter warning and only after *at least* 2 months (and usually
around 4 months) do we revoke the ASN.

In the case you specify below, I ask for faxed letters from their upstream
providers proving the problems and a date by which they say the problems
will be fixed.  But we usually don't run into such problems anymore since
the ASN requestor has to sign on to:
http://www.isoc.org.il/ip-nets-rules.html
and rule 6 states:

Multihoming implies that you will be talking BGP to at least two other BGP
peers and they will be announcing your block of IP nets with your ASN as
the source of those nets. Note: the process of finding 2 ISPs to do BGP
and to agree on a contract, as well as installing a Cisco router to handle
BGP with large routing tables and to do the entire setup takes a while. If
you have not started the process - you will not meet the 2 month deadline.
It is therefore best to send in this application well after having started
the process with the two ISPs and having installed the proper router. 

Perhaps it is time for everyone to be a bit more aggressive when handing
out ASNs since it is a far more finite resource than IP address space.

-Hank

> Hi
>   I am a bit concerned about an email we recieved threatening the
> revokation of an assigned AS number if it did not appear to be used. It
> concerns me for a number of reasons.
> 
> 1. Our customer has had problems with other providers and there own network,
> which has postponed the intended use of the AS for quite a few month, all
> due to things out of their and our control.
> 
> 2. If you do revoke it then the customer may suddenly get things fixed and
> start using the AS as intended but in the meantime you assign it to another
> customer and the problems ensue. If you do not assign it why whould you ask
> for it back?
> 
> 3. Just because an AS does not appear in the looking glass does not mean
> that its not being used in situation which does not mean it does not need to
> be announced at any looking glass.
> 
> Please could you clarify this situation?
> 
> Regards
> Stephen Burley
> UUNET EMEA Hostmaster
> SB855-RIPE
> 

Hank Nussbacher