[Cc'ing prop-50 discussion to sig-policy.] Geoff Huston wrote:
Hi Scott,In your article you imply that the RIRs' registry functions are not theproper lever from which to apply the various regulatory functions that thecommunity has indicated are needed. Where/how would you propose the regulatory function reside / be applied instead?Again, the real question is, MUST the RIRs have an answer for _everything_? Must the RIR's devise complex procedures that attempt to counter particular behaviours, at the common community cost of more onerous procedures with higher overheads. And without any practical enforcement mechanism why will others even listen to the RIRs?
I understand that the RIRs don't have to do this. I'm asking who else (or what other set of distributed incentives and emergent properties) should do it instead.
If no one / nothing else can do it, and it needs done, maybe we should try. If you think APNIC can't do so for whatever reason, I still think ARIN could (and should) for the ARIN region.
Or, to put a more practical face on the same question: how do you proposethat the industry deal with the deaggregation that will result from the widespread transfer of small netblocks (as allowed under prop-50)?Thats a very good example, because deaggregation in the address space has been a constant factor for decades. i.e. if enforcing strong aggregation in the routing space was a metric of success of the policy framework associated with allocation, then the metrics of the routing system over the past 10 years would have to assign a failing grade here.
I would argue that current levels of deaggregation have not yet posed undue burden on default-free operators, and based on that, the historical/current level of routing table growth is manageable. I am therefore only talking about attempting to provide sufficient incentive to maintain the current "weak" level of aggregation.
Again, to quote from the article:"However, fragmentation of the routing space has not been directly linked to the further allocation function, and the results of this decoupling of policy with a risk of any negative outcome is clearly evident in the continuing fragmentation observed in the routing space."So, no, I don't think that any transfer policy proposal will do any better than the allocation policy framework, and the allocation policy framework has been, on the whole, ineffectual.
I agree that we can't do any better than we do today. However, we can do a lot worse, and likely will under prop-50.
For example, consider two requests from two different organizations, the first for a /16 and the second for a /18. Today, that is obviously two allocations and two new routes in the DFZ. Now consider what happens in a simplified transfer market where the supply consists of five discontiguous /18s and a /16, with the /18s priced at $1000 each and the /16 at $5000.
Under prop-50, the first organization will get four discontiguous /18s for $4000 (passing up the intact /16 at $5000). The second will get the fifth /18 for $1000. In the end, that means that we will have 4+1=5 new routes in the table.
Under an RIR-regulated transfer market, however, the first organization would be required to get a contiguous /16, for $5000. The /18 would still be a /18, so that would be 2 new routes in the table.
As you can see from the example above, or from a more general application of economic principles to the likely supply and demand of a transfer market, constraining the recipient of space under transfer to receiving only a single block large enough to meet their needs approximately preserves the current rate of routing table growth. However, moving to a transfer policy like prop-50 results in an increase in the rate of routing table growth.
-Scott