Re: Internic address allocation policy

[karl () mcs com (Karl Denninger)]

> At 22:05 3/19/95, Vadim Antonov wrote:
> > You may like it or dislike it but nation-wide backbone providers
> > effectively run the Internet nowadays.  It is a rare case when
> > big businesses actually introduced some common sense in the way
> > things are done architecture-wise.  Why not to do the same with
> > the address allocation?
>
> Speaking from a (large) user organization. I am very concerned about
> having the ISPs performing address allocation, particularly aggregating
> addresses. As a user, I want to be able to change my service provider
> if I get a better deal from a competitor or am having service
> difficulties with my current provider. Today's technology for managing
> addresses on individual computers makes it very hard for an
> organization to renumber. Literally every computer administrator needs
> to be in the loop. This can be a large loop when you have 13,000+
> independently managed machines (like we do).
>
> How do we users get our say to ensure that an addressing architecture
> doesn't come into existence which tends to lock us into a particular
> provider?
>
>                         -Jeff

In THEORY, once an address range is delegated to you it is YOURS.  CIDR
permits "holes", that is, more-specific routes.

Yes, this eventually will cause CIDR to fail due to entropy.  What is new
about that?  This was known and understood when CIDR was developed and
deployed.

Some providers try to force you to "give back" the address(es) when you
leave.  MCSNet, and most others, do not.  My view on this is that once you
receive an address consisting of at least a Class "C" block (ie: the last
octet is yours) then it is yours to keep -- period.

For sub-C allocations there is no good way to delegate those, and as such
at present we view sub-C allocations as belonging to us, and I suspect most
other providers who are as aggressive as we are in delegating small pieces
of address space also view things in this fashion.

--
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