Donald Neal wrote:
One simple answer is that it long has been, and before that was held by The University of Waikato. That Telecom hold a lot of New Zealand's address space isn't a new issue. (See, for instance, the archive for this list for June 1998.)
As I posted back then
For those interested RIPE-127 (http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-127.html) provides a useful and lucid dissertation on the subject and offers a number of sensible recommendations. To selectively quote "All early Internet address space assignments were provider independent. Many assignments made by ISPs are also formally provider independent because they lack the clear prior understanding between ISP and customer that the assignment will end with the termination of the service."
This is effectively confirmed by RIPE-288 ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-288.txt which obsoletes Ripe-127, now at ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-127.txt. I have had several goes at APNIC over the past few years to get them to recognise the historical allocations made by Waikato as provider independent (PI) space and for them to be managed as such rather than as provider aggregatable (PA) addresses, i.e. Telecom's. The meeting at the Cisco offices that Joe refers was as I recall in response to Joe's splendid dissertation on the subject http://list.waikato.ac.nz/pipermail/nznog/1998-October/000180.html. Joe's recollection that "We also reached loose agreement at that meeting to carve up the historical NZGATE assignments into /19s, and give nominal authority over each /19 to the ISP who happened to have the most customers in it at the time" still seems to me to be the best outcome although with the smaller assignment window the /19 could be smaller. Sadly I was never able to fully engage Internetnz in this battle as I suspect the topic was rather too esoteric for many of the councillors. APNIC seem primarily interested in the historically allocated space going away and making it Telecom's problem is a neat solution for them. If Don Kendrick is serious about "if someone whats to asume the management and costs associated with these IPs" I'd be happy to facilitate this. I would need the old whois data though :) Unless Don is serious then NZNogers seem to me to have four options: 1. Accept the status quo, leave it to Telecom and pay apnic for space. Handled properly this is a relatively painless (apart from the wads of cash) way of sorting the matter. 2. Pay lawyers to attack telecom, APNIC, et al. This would make the wads of cash for joining apnic seem like petty cash. 3. Write to the Commerce Commission about what could be interpreted as Telecom's anti competitive behaviour. (i.e let's take out the small guys who have no cash to fight us approach). 4. Get an organisation interested in promotion of the competitive provision of Internet access, services and facilities in an open and uncaptureable environment (and with a deep pocket) to take up the cause. Keith? -- Robert Gray bob(a)brockhurst.co.nz