!! (fwd)

Sun Jan 30 23:46:30 UTC 1994

--------
] From: Scott Williamson <scottw at internic.net>
] Subject: Re: !! (fwd)
] Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 17:57:41 EST
]
] 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.

It would be worth establishing some guidelines as soon as possible: I just saw
a message to com-priv describing basically "How to become an Internet Provider
in 10 easy steps."   In particular, the description of commercial routing and
the recommendation _not_ to get addresses from your upstream provider I found
most amusing... 

If you accept the following postulates:

	o  Perfection in aggregation is desirable but not required.

	o  With CIDR, we're trying to insure that _individual_ network
		announcements are reduced or eliminated.

	o  It's administratively possible to _allocate_ a large block
		but only delegate in smaller blocks as needed.

Then you can use something similiar to the following process:

 	1) Potential "providers" should be allocated a large block of 
		network numbers (i.e. 256, 1024 or higher) based upon 
		claimed need.

	2) Such providers would then receive authority over the first 16 
		or so networks, so that they may proceed with business.

	3) Upon depletion, the provider could request additional addresses
		from the existing block (the need for which may be readily
		confirmed by checking that the previous addresses have been
		allocated & updated in the WHOIS/distributed WHOIS database.)

	4) Once a provider is established and considered bona fide (in the 
		view of their allocation authority), larger delegations then
		become possible.

This is effectively what any provider has to do now with downstream networks,
whether those networks are another provider or large private client networks.

/John

p.s.  Of course, adding a small finacial incentive (one-time or annual fee for
	 address use) could also help requestors better gauge their true need.