[governance] Substance: What issues should the WGIG focus on?

[Harold Feld]

My understanding from community networks here in the U.S. that ARIN will
charge $2,500/yr for an IPv6 block.  While cheap for a business, this is
out of the question for CWNs -- especially given the alternative of NAT boxes.

Harold

At 01:47 PM 9/9/2004, Adam Peake wrote:
>At 11:35 AM -0400 9/9/04, Harold Feld wrote:
>>I believe that we should raise the issue of the administration of the
>>number space within the context of the WGIG.  We should highlight those
>>issues in number allocation that inhibit noncommercial use of the Internet
>>and should press for examination of these policies with a goal of changing
>>them to policies that facilitate noncommercial use.
>>
>>Similarly, competitive effects of IP address allocation should be
>>examined.  Artificially inflated prices caused by allocation policies that
>>inhibit the development of competition hurt all users, but noncommercial
>>users in particular.  Artificially inflated prices are essentially a
>>regressive tax on IP allocations.
>
>
>Harold,
>
>How much do RIRs charges for a single IP address, I am pretty sure APNIC
>works out at about 1 cent / address (it might be as much as 3 cents. US
>not AU.)  Where's the problem, with the RIR or ISP?  (I don't know, this
>is a genuine question!)
>
>I am very interested in finding out if RIR open policy processes work.
>Something we've discussed in other lists is how some of the early large
>allocations (the pre 1995 blocks) might be recovered. Some people in Japan
>have mentioned IP number portability as a problem, plenty of broadband and
>growing home networks (I am technically clueless, but I think there are
>kind of hard wired reasons why that's hard.)
>
>Thanks,
>
>Adam
>
>
>
>
>
>>Harold
>>
>>At 07:21 PM 9/8/2004, you wrote:
>>>Not sure what this means. The tendency is to allocate number space to
>>>large players (big ISPs which then sub-allocate to smaller comapnies
>>>etc.), with no possibility to have your own small subset of IP space
>>>as an end user (even if you are an .org with 100 computers). Is this
>>>what you'd like to have changed? With IPv6 this seems sort of
>>>impossible (so I am told). I think it is a pity too.
>>>
>>>On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, at 16:32 [=GMT-0400], Harold Feld wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Allow me to suggest an addition:
>>>>
>>>>  5. Access to number space in a manner that fosters non-commercial access
>>>>  and is competitively neutral.
>>>>
>>>>  Harold Feld
>>>>
>>>>  At 11:38 AM 9/5/2004, Milton Mueller wrote:
>>>>  > >>> "William Drake" <wdrake at ictsd.ch> 9/5/2004 12:23:56 AM >>>
>>>>  > >Can we identify five to seven leading issues and recommendations
>>>>  > >that we think are the most pressing with regard to IG?  These can
>>>>  > >be either individual issue-areas (e.g. management of identifiers is
>>>>  > >obviously one of them) or cross-cutting meta-level problems.
>>>>  >
>>>>  >Our forthcoming report will clarify many of these issues.
>>>>  >We (the Internet Governance Project) will be able to release
>>>>  >it in a few days. At the moment we are still subject to a
>>>>  >vetting process. Unfortunately, some of the actors are playing
>>>>  >games, either strategically refusing to comment or commenting
>>>>  >privately but telling us that they are officially "not commenting"
>>>>  >(but still giving us some valuable insight into what they think).
>>>>  >
>>>>  >Nevertheless, I can identify several areas that I think will
>>>>  >prove to be strategic:
>>>>  >
>>>>  >1. Relationship of Intellectual Property Protection to
>>>>  >Free Expression and Privacy.
>>>>  >I believe that certain international organizations and
>>>>  >perhaps some business interests will attempt to claim
>>>>  >that IPR is off the table, and that it has nothing to do
>>>>  >with Internet governance. Nothing could be further
>>>>  >from the truth. The Internet has forced a complete
>>>>  >revision of global copyright and trademark agreements
>>>>  >In a variety of venues, including
>>>>  >WIPO and ICANN, we see IPR protection issues
>>>>  >coming into direct contact with free expression and
>>>>  >privacy norms and even some scientific inquiry norms.
>>>>  >These issues should not be worked out exclusively
>>>>  >in arenas such as WIPO, which are historically mandated
>>>>  >to serve IPR interests and see IP owners as their
>>>>  >constituency.
>>>>  >
>>>>  >2. ICANN's status as a non-state actor.
>>>>  >This is a tricky one. ICANN is under attack on three fronts,
>>>  > >1) its basis in US Govt/law 2) its non-governmental nature
>>>  > >3) the degree to which it does "policy" as opposed to
>>>>  >"technical management" (which may be just an extension of
>>>>  >issue 2). There is no doubt that specific governments intend
>>>>  >to make an issue of this, and there is still the possibility that
>>>>  >it will overwhelm everything else. Imho, we need to defend
>>>>  >the multi-stakeholder, non-state governance of the regime
>>>>  >against the possibility that it will become more governmental
>>>>  >and regulatory, while recognizing (critically) that ICANN *does*
>>>>  >do policy and supporting efforts to find a model that
>>>>  >does not rely on US govt contracting. There are some even
>>>>  >deeper issues regarding the use of contracting as a global
>>>>  >governance mechanism, too much to go into here.
>>>>  >
>>>>  >3. Relationship between security/surveillance on the
>>>>  >Internet and civil liberties.
>>>>  >Here again, the narrow, issue-specific regimes focused
>>>>  >on attacking terrorism/crime tend to override other legitimate
>>>>  >concerns. We could promote a broadened dialogue
>>>>  >that forces Internet surveillance and security measures to be
>>>>  >respectful of human rights in a globally uniform way.
>>>>  >
>>>>  >4. Right to internetwork globally
>>>>  >The most fundamental issue is the hardest to convey.
>>>>  >Territorial governments must formally recognize and
>>>>  >explicitly accept the non-territorial nature of IP networking
>>>>  >and the Internet's architecture. No serious agreements about
>>>>  >Internet governance in any given area can be made until that
>>>>  >issue is dealt with. Either the potential of global networking
>>>>  >is accepted as a factual starting point, or governance
>>>>  >gravitates toward chopping it up into territorially-controlled
>>>>  >architectures and resource allocation procedures (thus
>>>>  >destroying much of the value of the Internet). It may be
>>>>  >too much to ask territorial governments to accept the
>>>>  >reality and salience of nonterritorial interconnection, but
>>>>  >that is really the choice they are faced with.
>>>>  >
>>>>  >--MM