Last Resort Registries

> Consequently it has been proposed several times already to close down
> the Last-Resort registries. I think it is now time to finally take 
> such a step with a timeframe of end Q3/95 or at the end of the year.

Daniel,

Some comments:

   - this would seem to imply that RFC1597 is now *compulsory* for private
     internets (certainly for those where any member also has a public
     Internet connection).

   - does the Internic still give out addresses to end customers ? If so,
     what is to stop an organisation obtaining addresses from the States,
     possibly through a US office or subsidiary ? I'm sure organisations
     are doing this now, but removing the last-resorts registries may well
     increase its prevalence.

   - though RIPE could discontinue the official last-resort registries, do
     we have any protection against providers setting themselves up as
     de-facto LR registries by selling off part of their provider address
     space to organisation who do not connect to them ? (this will only
     punch a hole in the providers aggregates if the organisation the
     addresses were assigned to decides at a later date to connect to the
     Internet (via another provider) - I could resell my provider addresses
     to private Internets without anyone knowing).

Non-provider/last-resort address assignments are not currently a major problem 
on their own - after all the traditional class B's are (almost always) 
non-provider addresses, yet I don't see anyone suggesting that we should all
be renumbering from our B's to addresses within a 193.* or 194.* CIDR block.

Granted, we need to avoid allocating lots of long-prefix non-aggregateable
addresses - this is the main problem with the last resort registries. Small
allocations should be avoidable, as small/medium sized organisations ought
to be able to renumber to provider addresses when they connect to the Internet.
But equally there is a demand for last-resort addresses from large 
organisations (certainly within the UK), looking either for a class B or a
large block of C's, the typical scenario being a large corporation making
the transition from SNA to TCP/IP over the course of a coupel of years, with
the intention of connecting to the Internet at the end of this process.
Where are these organisations left if the last resort registries are
discontinued ?

(Answer(?): if they are after a B (certainly, and probably if they want a 
substantial block of traditional C space) they end up talking to the NCC
from day one. Which comes back to Daniel's assertion that last-resort 
registries use NCC resources without contributing to the NCC; currently
last-resort registries do some (albeit sometimes negligible) vetting and
frontline processing of class B requests before passing them onto the NCC.
Without the LR registries, everything falls on the NCC).

Kevin Hoadley, JIPS NOSC