[address-policy-wg] Spectrum and IP address reservations

Tom,

On Jul 20, 2009, at 4:28 AM, tvest at eyeconomics.com wrote:
> To illustrate, I've never heard anyone claim that the *only* reason  
> why it was a good idea to move from NCP addressing to classful IP  
> was to enable competition.

I would be quite surprised if any of the participants in that  
transition even considered competition as a reason.

> Ditto, the move from classful IP to CIDR; then as before, the  
> prospect of continuous competition (including competition by  
> emerging new entrants) was just one of many reasons to support the  
> preservation of addressing and routing system openness.

Err, a bit too much revisionism here.

I don't recall anyone suggesting "continuous competition" as a reason  
for moving from classfull to CIDR.  In fact, CIDR was often and loudly  
criticized for constraining competition due to the implied provider  
lock in. As far as I remember, people pushing the transition were  
primarily interested in keeping their routers from falling over.  CIDR  
was merely a short term hack to deal with the proliferation of class  
Cs being allocated since class Bs were running out.  After all, IPng  
was going to be the savior of all things routing.

I suppose you could argue that keeping the Internet working meant  
there could be competition, but that's stretching things a bit far IMHO.

Regards,
-drc