Last Resort Registries

[Daniel Karrenberg <]

Last-Resort local IRs have been established to serve end-users who do
not have access to another local IR either because they do not connect
to the Internet yet or because Internet service providers were not yet
providing registry services. 

Recently the introduction of route aggregation (CIDR) and the
proliferation of local IRs operated by service providers greatly reduce
the usefulness of Last-Restort local IRs.  Even worse, the routing of
non-aggregatable address space negatively impacts the Internet routing
system.  Such space either is or shortly will be less then useful for
the end-user because they have to renumber when connecting.  Also there
is now private address space available for use of end-users who want
address space that is guaranteed not to be used by another end-user on
the Internet. 

Additionally the Last-Resort registries form an anomaly in the RIPE NCC
charging system, because they do not contribute to NCC funding while
using NCC resources. 

Consequently it has been proposed several times already to close down
the Last-Resort registries. I think it is now time to finally take 
such a step with a timeframe of end Q3/95 or at the end of the year.

Are there any serious problems with this step?

Daniel