Richard Hector wrote:
On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 08:48:20PM +1300, Andy Linton wrote:
Your IP address space is about as important a resource as you can think of. I'm stunned when people think they shouldn't have to pay for it.
I'm not sure of the validity of that argument - air is quite important to me, and I think that's probably one of the reasons I _don't_ have to pay for it.
I think you're deluded if you think air is free - the Kyoto protocol which we've signed up to commits NZ to carbon taxes. Keeping the air we breathe clean costs money and you pay tax to make it happen. I think it's a case that for many NZ organisations they've simply put off budgeting for this expense for so long that they thought the system had forgotten about them and they wouldn't get billed.
There are rules to ensure that space is conserved and allocated appropriately; I don't see a need to add an economic challenge as well, which gives a strong bias towards the large player. There are enough of those already.
So who pays for the administration of the number space? At this stage it's those who've joined APNIC (or RIPE or ARIN or LACNIC) and done the right thing to support responsible stewardship of the number space pay the costs - perhaps if more joined the cost would come down. That's been the trend at APNIC over the years.
And if the claim is that this amount of dosh is what's actually required for administration, then I'd suggest there's some wastage somewhere ...
It's not simply dishing out some IPv4 addresses - it's running a help desk, reverse name service, root name servers, IPv6 address allocation, AS numbers, routing registry.... I still stand by my earlier posting - moaning in this forum will not solve the problem. The discussions will need to be between APNIC, Telecom and those who have address blocks in this space with perhaps someone like InternetNZ to help broker a solution. But at the end of the day if you want your name in the registry against a block of numbers, either the ones you currently use or some new block, expect to pay. If you can't stand that particular piece of heat, get out of the kitchen.