domain names

[Tom Newell]

Chuck wrote...

>      
>      
>      This is the correct way to do domain registration now. There has been 
>      quite a bit of criticism of Internic for the way they administer this 
>      "service" and how they've sat on the "tolls" they have collected. 
>      Several other companies would like to get a piece of this action.
>      
>      Of course, they probably know about the plans, not yet widely 
>      reported, to start charging registration fees PER IP ADDRESS. If you 
>      thought paying $100 to register a whole domain was annoying, just 
>      think what would happen if you had to "register" hundreds or thousands 
>      of IP addresses.
>      
>      In my eyes this possibility would practically mean that you'd have to 
>      get a "license to publish" on the web, because those with large 
>      pockets would have an advantage.
>      
>      Stay tuned.
>      
>      Chuck Munson

Chuck,

Simply not true. The US government no longer provides funding to 
the InterNIC for handling IP allocation functions. For the past 
sixteen months the IP allocation functions have been subsidized 
by domain name registration fees. During the past year, Internet 
infrastructure meetings and various discussions in the Internet 
community have reached general consensus that the management of 
domain names and IP numbers should be separated. The ARIN proposal 
is an effort to achieve this separation and put the management of 
IP numbers in the hands of the Internet community. 

It simply will not impact individual members of the Internet
community as you suggest.

The InterNIC has proposed the creation of a "Not For Profit" 
organization named ARIN (see http://www.arin.net) which will
be a membership organization funded in the same manner that the
other two IP registries (RIPE - Europe, APNIC - Asia Pacific)
are.  The impact will not be as you have concluded.  Fees will
be charged only to fund the non-profit entity.  Keep in mind
that only those who receive their address space directly from
the InterNIC will be impacted.  Of the thousands of ISP's that
exist today, we allocate only to around 300 directly.  So only
these 300 will be impacted.  90% of the ISP community receive
their allocations from what we call an "upstream provider" and
will not be impacted at all. 

I would recommend the following to folks interested:

	ARIN Proposal
	http://www.arin.net

	INTERNIC IP ALLOCATION GUIDELINES FOR INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS
		ftp://rs.internic.net/policy/internic/internic-ip-1.txt	

	ARIN Recommended Reading List
		http://www.arin.net/arin_rr.html

	Take a look at RIP
		http://www.ripe.net

	and AP-NIC
		http://ww.apnic.net

	Or join the discussion list seeking comment for how the non-profit
	should be chartered. naipr-request at arin.net  (subscribe naipr)

Bottom-line - Network Solutions has proposed funding the creation
of an IP registry which is a non-profit and answers to the community
it serves through membership and elected boards.

Regards,

Tom
-- 

Tom Newell                  tomn at internic.net      +1 703 742 4796
Mngr, Info & Educ Svcs      InterNIC Registration Services 
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