nanog mailing list archives

Re: Allocation of IP Addresses


From: Robert Moskowitz <rgm3 () is chrysler com>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 09:09:36 -0500

At 10:51 AM 3/15/96 +0900, David R. Conrad wrote:
Gordon:

Just a small quibble David:  when you say "the IANA" decided, it gives 
the impression that an august group of people like the IESG took action.  

I certainly would not intend to, nor do I think I did, give the
impression that a group like the IESG took action.  One of the
advantages (and arguable disadvantages) of the current registry system
is a lack of bureaucratic overhead of the type you thought I was
implying.

In reality "the IANA" is but a SINGLE person - John Postel.  

Actually, it is 2 people, Jon Postel and Joyce Reynolds.  However,
note that the IANA is responsible to the IAB in the great Internet
organzation chart in the sky.

If some 
people are upset I suspect it might be because the power to make such a 
decision is vested in the hands of ONE person rather than in a group.

My impression is that people are concerned that an organization with
no track record and no customers (at this time) was able to obtain a
highly coveted large block of space.  Further, some people are
concerned with the allocation of a subnet of a class A where an
equivalently sized block in the class C space would have seemed
appropriate.  

As I seem to recall, the @Home proposal (at least what I saw of it after the
fact) was for a potential 50 Million addresses.  This definitely puts it out
of the range of a registry decision and moved it to IANA.

Those of us that were in the middle of the IPng address size debate had
predicted a request like this and have not supprise of the outcome.

BTW, there are 'rumours' floating around that China wants a couple of A's or
so...


Robert Moskowitz
Chrysler Corporation
(810) 758-8212



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