Geoff Huston made some eloquent comments on this policy at the NANOG PPC yesterday. I asked him to repeat those comments on the list.
I received the following comment from Geoff Huston off-list. I repost it here with his permission… > I should note that as a member of APNIC staff I am > neither for nor against this proposal, and my comment here is intended to > be more of a comment that reflects on the role of address plans and the > utility and value of the network. Nevertheless I'm sure that my own > opinions will become evident here, but I would not like the ARIN AC folk to > pay such opinions any attention in the context of their further > consideration of the sense of the ARIN address policy community. > > For some years I have advocated the benefits of managing addresses within > the framework of the Regional Internet Registry administrative model in > venues that were accustomed to immediately thinking that such matters were > most appropritely matters for countries to manage individually and > separately as sovereign entities. > > My response to this was to point out that right from the start, if there > was one thing that was fundamental about the Internet that was different to > many other technologies at the time was that it was borderless. In the 80's > you applied to the Internic and completed your application for IP addresses > and they responded with a confirmation that you had received an address > block and it was uniquely assigned to you. And I could use these addresses > anywhere I chose. That did not mean that doing business on the net was > instantly enabled, or anything even close to that, but it was one less > impediment in the path. The Regional Internet Registries did not spring up > from a desire to build ring fences around geographies, but oddly enough > quite the opposite. It was to make this process of obtaining addresses even > easier and more convenient. You could speak to someone in your own time > zone, who hopefully spoke your langiuage, but the end outcome, the address > assignment, was precisely the same: a block of addresses that could be used > anywhere on the Internet, and reachable by everyone else. > > This breaking down of such impediments has happened in many ways and in > many places, but the cumulative result has been the enabling of activities > that have proved to be highly effective and engaging across the entire > globe, and at the same time creating considerable economic value all over > the world. Internet addresses that were not geo-politically scoped were not > the only reaon for this, and perhaps this is not often listed in everyone's > top 10 reasons why the Internet has managed to surpass everyone's > expectations about its prospects, but it was is important factor > nevertheless. If we had managed to fracture the address plant at any time > in the past by putting arbitrary forms of ring fences around addresses, > then I'd guess that we would not have got the Internet to where it is today. > > So it seems to me that there are good reasons why you want to keep looking > for ways to break down further impediments and barriers to use the > Internet, and ways to make the network a tool for access to a seamless > global environment. And, equally, there are probably many reasons to pause > and reflect on the longer term implications of reverting to regional, or > even national address plans. We many want to reflect on the network's > routing architecture and the relationship of address frameworks and the > costs and scaleability of global routing, or reflect on the value of ready > access to a global population of clients for your services, and the ability > to leverage the Internet to provide the most efficiently sourced services > to customers without the overt impositions of localized barriers and > impositions. > > It's not that an open address model naturally enables all these beneficial > outcomes, because it does not, but perhaps there is reason to think that > the reverse, namely the imposition of a localised addressing model, does > make a net contribution to the costs and overheads in using the Internet > rather than to it's benefits. _______________________________________________ PPML You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List ([email protected]). Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at: http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml Please contact [email protected] if you experience any issues.
