RE: New draft of NIR criteria document

[Geoff Huston <gih@telstra.net>]

Kosuke Ito requested some information from the APNIC Director General on

"Could you clarify more about your intention why you emphasize to give ISPs 
the freedom to choose NIR or APNIC to receive the resources as in Sec. 2.5? "

I would like to respond to this request, and in so doing also note that the 
NIR policy document, and indeed all APNIC policy documents are an outcome 
of peer review and the formulation of peer consensus within ourselves as a 
group - its not a case of constantly bouncing a question and answer ball 
between each APNIC Interest Group and the Director General, but instead it 
is a case of attempting to work within ourselves together to understand 
what the best answers may be. So oin that basis I'll offer my perspectives 
on a response to this question.

So here's my take on NIRs and APNIC: the definition of the role of National 
Internet Registries within APNIC is an outcome of a number of issues 
concerning the diversity of national positions with respect to the 
administration of Internet Numbering Resources and, more broadly, Internet 
Service Provider regulatory frameworks across the Asia Pacific region. NIRs 
reflect the desire of some national domains to support a local 
administrative function which operates within the framework of a national 
language, national character set and a  local timezone.  On the other hand, 
in some environments a national framework appears to offer no particular 
benefit, and in such environments direct access to APNIC services is a 
rational and sound outcome.

This might lead to the view that some countries have NIRS as an exclusive 
numbering resource administrator and some national regimes do not, but even 
that is not sufficient for our region. Within some national environments 
there is a significant level of diversity, where some local entities, and 
some multi-national entities are comfortable in dealing with APNIC 
directly, and prefer to so do, while other local entities see value in 
having a locally operated administrative function.

So, as far as I can tell, there is no intent in this NIR proposal to 
substitute competition and free trade for due and proper administrative 
control over the Internet Numbering resource. There is, however, the intent 
to offer levels of choice to each entity that requires numbering resources 
that accommodates the diversity of national regimes and the diversity of 
the profile of entities and their preferences.


kind regards,

   Geoff Huston