!! (fwd)

Wed Feb 2 18:15:55 UTC 1994

> 
>   
>   > I have asked the question many time.  "What is a provider?".  Once
>   > the CIDR allocation started the "Providers" came out of the
>   > woodworks.  No one so far has given an answer to the question that
>   > the majority can agree with. I will not be at the regional tech
>   > meeting in CA but Mark will.  I don't know a group better suited
>   > to answer the question that established providers. Do us a favor
>   > and come up with a proposed answer to "What is a provider".  I
>   > will work with NSF and Postel to make it policy. This would make
>   > our life easier.
> 
> The "regional-techs" group is not a suitable group to make policy
> about who can and can't be a network service provider.  For quite a
> while in its life, it was a group that had no intention of letting
> non-NSF sponsored networks have any access to their meetings.  
> As a result there is very close to no participation by any of the
> emerging public access Internet providers, the very group that is
> most likely to want to get address blocks of their own to hand out to
> their customers.

I was not asking regional-techs to make policy. I was asking for help 
defining  "what is a provier ?".  Things are changing very fast .... 
i do not want to wake up six months from now to find that the allocations 
done incorrectly or should have been done more effienctly. I only ask for 
help in making the determination of where to or if to draw the line.  Messages 
from Richard, John, and  Bill were very helpful. A gread deal of concern has 
been express about this question.  The definition may not really matter and 
after asking this question for the last year i don't know if there is a 
definition.

********* This is happening more and more ( 1 to 2 new per day )******
I just setup a network to be a IP service provider. I am  connected to 
provider A and they are connected to provider B the interconnection to
other network only occur at provider B. I want MY block of 256 or 1024.
*********************************************************************

Scott

>   
>   I think we have to be very careful here.  When we make policy that
>   adversely affects someone's business interests we're just begging for
>   a suit.  Especially with the *perceived* "shortage" or IPv4
>   addresses.  It seems to me that it would be very difficult to exclude
>   anybody from the category of "provider"  (for the purpose of giving
>   him or her addresses) who has even the flimsiest claim to being one.
> 
> I think it's high time to start imposing (nominal) fees for the
> privelege of having network address assignments maintained.  If this
> is done in any reasonable way, with full enough cooperation of
> everyone involved and prices that are not out of line with what people
> expect, it will work very well.

> 
> Prices could be set to balance the expected aggregate routing load and
> the shortage of IPv4 addresses, and in ways that would promote
> sensible number allocation.  
> 	
>   Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, Msen Inc. emv at Msen.com
> Msen Inc., 320 Miller, Ann Arbor MI  48103 +1 313 998 4562 (fax: 998 4563)
> 