Policy Statement on Address Space Allocations

Fri Jan 26 23:06:13 UTC 1996

I thought it's time for the InterNIC to join in on the fun :-)

The registries (although I shouldn't speak for all of them) would be
more than happy to allocate address space in whatever way the ISPs
agree is the "right way".  The problem is, you can't agree on what's
the "right way" of doing it.  Everyone has their own agenda and 
most have a very limited view of what's best, meaning their view is
limited to their own requirements.

On the other hand, the registries must try and take into consideration
everyone's agenda and needs.  This is not an easy task.

The InterNIC is very aware of the routing table problem.  We do everything
humanly possible to educate everyone requesting address space about this.
We also refer everyone to their upstream provider in an effort to help
with this problem.  The truth is, Sprintlinks filtering policy has helped
because in the past we could only threaten people with the possibility of
what might happen.  Now we can point to facts rather than supposition.
People are listening and they are going to their ISP for address
space.  We have dropped from about 800 /24s - /21 assignments per month to
about 30 /24s - /21s per month.

However, it isn't so easy to convince ISPs to contact upstream providers
for address space.  Understandably, they all want portable address
space.  They do not want to be tied to their upstream ISP.  David
Conrad mentioned that the InterNIC receives about 20 templates per
week from startup ISPs, the number is now closer to 50.  Most I 
refer to their upstream but they are not happy about it.  

True, the registries do work hard to help preserve the address space.
I don't know what the growth rate of new ISPs in other areas is, but in
North America it seems to be the newest fad.  The InterNIC receives many
calls each day from people who have decided to become ISPs, the only
problem is that many don't know how to spell TCP/IP.  Now if we were to issue
every ISP a first allocation of a /18 prefix or shorter - how long do you
think the address space will last.  I know that the routing table problem
is a more pressing issue, however, I believe if we drastically change
the allocation policy and give a /17 to each ISP regardless of their
requirement that will quickly change.

Most of you honestly believe you need a huge amount of space for growth,
well what makes you any different from every other ISP on the planet.
If you didn't believe in yourself or your potential, you wouldn't
be in this business.  However, realistically, we cannot give everyone
the amount of address space that he/she wants to start - that's why
we have slow-start, to help determine what an ISP actually needs.

And for the record, the InterNIC does make many allocations from
larger reserved blocks.

Now, I'm sure that every ISP reading this message cares very deeply
for the Internet (as does the InterNIC) and utilizes address space
efficiently, etc.  But consider the hundreds of ISPs that don't.

Kim