Re: National NICs sought for Network Number Assignments

[Dave Morton <]

>   Juha, I don't understand, does this mean you do not have a national
>   NIC ? Who coordinates all this !!
>
>to my understanding, yes, it does mean that we don't have a national
>NIC.  we haven't set up such a mechnaism yet.  most likely it would
>mean that those who are no customers of any of the finnish service
>providers should have to pay for the establishement of the NIC.
>coordination among the service providers has been done by bilateral
>agreements in those cases where trafic has been exchanged.  you must
>understand that there are many competing service providers which makes
>the situation tricky.
>
>-- juha
>
>
Juha,
This is rather interesting. DIGI e.V. (German Internet Users Society)
is presently in the process of attempting a re-organisation of the 
existing DE-NIC on a more financially and administratively secure footing. 
We, in Germany, also have multiple service providers, and probably more
on the way real soon now. One of these service providers is currently
attempting a "takeover" of the current neutral NIC. To what extent it
has a God given right to run the service is not at all clear to me, nor
for that matter to many others either. How such a "monopolised" DE-NIC
should continue work in a neutral fashion for the other providers etc. 
has not been made clear, to my knowledge, to anybody, including the 
current DE-NIC token holder.  We're awaiting further developments in 
this area.

It's nice to see that the Finns have somehow managed to avoid this
German situation until now, although I do have the feeling from what
you say that there's plenty of potential for a similar Finnish problem
as well !

The DIGI model proposes a commission to specify the tasks of such a DE-NIC,
as well as the financial and the legal framework in which it might operate.
The commission consists of service providers, DIGI representatives as well as
representatives from both the academic/research and commercial communities. 
We are of the opinion that only through such a general forum will we be able
to achieve a solid and lasting consensus. This, of course, will require the
cooperation of all the interested parties, which we hope will be forthcoming.

Wish us luck.
Dave