A Question

As far as I know, there are two feasible cases:

1. The customer MOVES from one ISP to another
2. The customer connects to ANOTHER ISP, while using the other ISP

2 is usually performed either by the use of BGP or by the use of static
asymmetric routing, or RADWare's LinkProof.

In the 1st case, there's no reason to continue the assignment, the customer
is holding addresses which they cannot use. Period. In 99.9% of the cases a
customer receives a fraction of a larger aggregate, and there's no
reason/possibility that the new ISP will be able to route that fraction via
BGP to the world. This means - no packets would arrive to that customer
(with destination IP of the old IPs), which leads us to the conclusion that
the assignment should be returned.

In the 2nd case, the reason here is usually high availability and/or load
balancing between links/ISPs. In this situation, the customer NEEDS both the
assignments.

I believe that 'legal', a LIR cannot just 'demand' that a customer would
return their previously-assigned IPs unless there's a reason (i.e., the
situation is case #1). It might be that that specific LIR is having problems
with its AW (let's say their AW is 256 ips, and the customer already has
IPs, it might be that the 'new' LIR needs to send a RIPE-141 to RIPE - and
they might be too lazy to do that).

Just my $0.0000000000002


Regards,

---
Yuval Shchory
Manager
Security Group
NetVision Ltd.
interFax: +972-3-5480255


-----Original Message-----
From: Andre Koopal [mailto:andre at NL.UU.NET]
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 11:45 AM
To: lir-wg at ripe.net
Subject: Re: A Question


On Mon, Feb 05, 2001 at 11:58:47AM +0330, SAEED KHADEMI wrote:
> [ Moderator note: changed local-ir at ripe.net -> lir-wg at ripe.net ]
> 
> 
> Hello,
>  Dear coleagues, Please excuse me if this is not the right place for
> this kind of questions.
>  I am working as a LIR hostmaster since 5 years ago. Due to the act of
> people of another LIR, a question has rised in my mind. And I want to
> know about any defined regulation in this regard. 
>  The Question:
> 
>  Is it legal that technical persons of one LIR, ask their customer to
> return other LIR assignments, because the customer has asked for new
> IP assignment?
>  This has been accured many times. Customer having some IP assignments
> from LIR-1, are applying for new IP assignments from LIR-2. But people
> at LIR-2 are saying that if you want new IP assignments, you HAVE TO
> return LIR-1 assignments !!!!!!!
> 
>  Any comment?
> 
Some thoughts on this from me, not neccesarely the truth.

As LIR they can say that if you don't return space, you have to much
space, so the request isn't justified. If the customer can proof he has
the need for both chunks of space ...

As an ISP you can (and should) refuse the customer to route his ip-space
from his old provider.

Both together mean that in the ordinary case of a customer migrating from
one ISP to another they can force the customer to return his old space.

Regards,

Andre