ripe-167

What's the buzz?

Why are you so aggrevated? From the very beginning we were much
confident that the Ukraine won't ever go for this, no single chance
for that. There also are other contries in CIS wich probably won't
accept this proposal as well. And it's not clear which countries
will accept and which reject the proposal. Hence CIS had been chosen
as a generic name. Had it been CIS (but not Ukraine) it would have
certainly satisfied you but that's ridiculous.

The whole idea of the document is to start a discussion in
all CIS countries and let them decide are they supporting the
idea or not. You (all or most or major Ukranian ISPs) seems to have 
made you choice - nice, nobody won't ever force you to receieve
the service from so hated Russia, but what all this buzz, all these
political speculations are for? Let other people decide by themselves,
they certainly may have different views and different opinions
and your country's situation doesn't apply to them.


> 	Being a person who actually operate one of the major
> 	LIRs in Ukraine, UA.GU, with almost 5 years of experience
> 	of administering IP networks,
> 	I'd like to comment on both the approach
> 	of ripe-167 and on some actual statements of it.

You cerainly are throwing such a heavy weight against what seems to
have no business with your business.

> 
> 	I'd also like to provide some proposals about how to
> 	improve the state of affairs at least for Ukraine.

This is certainly very good but has nothing to do with the proposal per se.

> 
> 	I'm Cc:-ing this message to all interested parties,
> 	in a hope that a broader discussion will start then.

Sure you do. You also would have done a good thing if your had you
not used ripe-167 as a basis for your statements.

> 
> 	ripe-167 was also discussed by the Ukrainian First National
> 	Conference "Internet technologies in National
> 	Information Infrastrure", in Yalta, November 3-6,
> 	organized under supervision of Ukrainian Ministry of
> 	Information and National Agency for Informatization.
> 	This is why there wasn't an earlier reply -- now
> 	my comments are accomodating the results of the discussion.

Very nice. So let take your statement as opinion of Ukrainian ISPs
toward the proposal and stop buzzin around about it. Other people
will decide themselces and certainly not based on false
assumption and political hatred.


> 	Let's examine the document below.
> 
> -------------------------- ripe-167.txt --------------------------------
> #      
> #     A Regional Internet Registry for the Commonwealth of Independent States
> #                                        
> #      Robert Blokzijl
> #      Daniel Karrenberg
> #      Alexei Platonov
> #      2 October 1997
> #      
> # Table of Contents
> # 
> #          1.Scope 
> #          2.Background 
> #          3.Local Service Arrangement 
> #          4.New Regional Registry 
> #          5.Next Steps 
> #          6.Addresses of the Authors 
> #        ______________________________________________________________
> #      
> # 1.Scope
> # 
> #      This memorandum is intended to focus discussion about the
> #      establishment of a Regional Internet Registry serving the CIS and
> #      surrounding areas. Public comments are invited. The ultimate aim of
> #      this process is to achieve rough consensus about the issue within
> #      the region concerned. This memo represents the views of the
> #      individual authors only. It has not been endorsed by any
> #      organisation.
> #      
> # 2.Background
> # 
> #      Since the start of the RIPE NCC as a regional Internet registry in
> #      April 1991 Russia and the other countries of the CIS (former USSR)
> #      have been served by the RIPE NCC. Developments of the last few
> #      years however suggest that it is difficult for the RIPE NCC to
> #      serve all parts of this area because in practise there exist a
> #      number of practical problems. These problems have to do with
> #      circumstances caused by:
> #      
> #    - local language problems
> #
> 	This is not a problem.  There is an axiom that at least for
> 	ISP there is at least one person onsite who has sufficient
> 	English skills to communicate with RIPE personnel.

What a certainity! "Axiom" - not less than that. You definitely
talked to every ISP in every CIS country and they told you about that.
How fun.

> 
> #    - time zone differences
> #           
> 	Assignment of IP address space and establishment of LIRs
> 	aren't a matter of minutes and even hours aren't always
> 	that critical.  In any case, if the process will take some time,
> 	it's not that big a problem.

Apparently RIR has nothing to do but the things you mentioned. I wonder
why there's  lot of staff at RIPE and they hire more and more. Daniel,
are you people mostly hanging around without anything to do? :-)

> 
> #    -  travel difficulties
> #           
> #    -  effort necessary to organise coordination meetings
> 
> 	Mailing lists aren't that bad for coordination, anyway.

Sure they are. Another stone for RIPE - what are you spending money for -
meetings ain't necessary, "anyway". :-)

> 
> #      If has been suggested more than once that the countries of the CIS
> #      in fact form a separate region from Europe that needed special
> #      regional support.
> 
> 	This thesis isn't historically or politically correct.
> 	First of all, CIS isn't something solid or clearly defined,
> 	xUSSR is a much better definition.

Oh, you are looking for additinal support, aren't. You would habe
been more happy had the document referenced to exUSSR - then Baltic
countries would have been involved (certainly on your side). No,
thanks - they already have shown some concern, even with "CIS",
which under no circumstances refers to them.

> 
> 	Some countries of xUSSR belong to Eastern Europe, culturally
> 	and historically.  Others are much closer to Middle East.
> 	And anyway, this is a set of _different_ countries,
> 	often they are much more isolated one from another
> 	than any given pair of Western European countries.
> 	Reality is: there isn't such clear "region" as CIS.

Is there a "clear" region as Middle East? Asia/Pacific? Europe
after all? Guided by your approach - no. CIS *is* a formal entity,
they even have some govermental bodies.

You seems not to understand one point (and it's probably not clearly
stated in the document) - the would-be RIR will serve *some* countries
in CIS region and any other country that may decide (by majority,
or by consensus) to receive the services from it.

> 
> #      Because of these difficulties the RIPE NCC has cooperated with the
> #      Russian Institute of Public Networks, RosNIIROS. RosNIIROS is also
> #      known by its english acronym: RIPN. RosNIIROS have acted since
> #      1992, in close cooperation with RIPE NCC, as a Local IR of last
> #      resort. They also support the Local IR activities of a significant
> #      number of ISPs in the region.
> #      
> # 3.Local Service Arrangement
> # 
> #      As everywhere else in the world, also Russia and the CIS have seen
> #      a rapid growth in Internet activities, including a growth in the
> #      number of ISPs. Currently about 100 ISPs are active in the region,
> #      of which around 60 are located in Russia.
> 
> 	If the above statement was supplied by some statistics
> 	and numbers, the picture might be much more clear.
> 	As for me, I consider the total of 100 is somewhat
> 	underestimated.

There are about 500 acting ISPs in Russian alone, but most of
them are not receiving and probably will never receive services from
RIR (RIPE or any other) directly, they talk to their upstream providers.
Are there more than 30 ISPs paying for services to RIPE in the Ukraine?
I doubt it (just checked - 17, not counting multi-nationals; in Russia
there are 62).

> 
> #      The current growth is
> #      about 3 new ISPs per month. Most of the new ISPs are located in the
> #      Urals region and further east in Siberia.
> 
> 	Note: Urals and Siberia are parts of a single country -- Russia.

Nice excersize in geography.

> 
> #      Because of this growth
> #      and the difficulties described above, the RIPE NCC is exploring
> #      ways to ensure optimal service for these registries.
> #      
> #      The RIPE NCC are currently considering to ask RosNIIROS to provide
> #      full local support equivalent to that supplied by the Amsterdam
> #      RIPE office to local registries in the region that wish to use it.
> #      The NCC would remain fully responsible for operations including
> #      service level and quality. The NCC would provide all necessary
> #      resources to RosNIIROS. Local registries in the region would
> #      continue to have a service agreement with the RIPE NCC but have the
> #      option to receive service according to their preference from either
> #      RosNIIROS or the RIPE NCC, but not both at the same time. We
> #      envisage to start this arrangement sometime during the first
> #      quarter of 1998. Of course all this will happen under the guidance
> #      of the RIPE Local IR working group and IANA
> #      
> #      The subsequent period can then be used by RosNIIROS to gain
> #      experience and increase the acceptance of their service. This time
> #      will also be used to get a clearer idea of the exact extent of the
> #      region served by the potential RIR. We expect this period to last
> #      at least 12 months but not more than 24 months.
> #      
> # 4.New Regional Registry
> # 
> #      We expect that the above arrangement will work well. Because of
> #      that it will eventually be used by the majority of the Local IR s
> #      in the region. Steps will then be taken to convert the local
> #      service arrangement into its own Regional Internet Registry
> #      separate from the RIPE NCC. A prerequisite for this is widespread
> #      acceptance, appropriate governance mechanisms and a truly
> #      international scope.
> #      
> #      This whole process needs active involvement of all ISP's in the
> #      region in the governance of the Regional IR RosNIIROS will actively
> #      pursue to gain the acceptance and help to put the appropriate
> #      governance mechanisms in place.
> #      
> # 5.Next Steps
> # 
> #      The authors invite a public discussion about this process
> #      especially within the CIS region but also within RIPE in general.
> #      RIPE NCC and RosNIIROS will take preparatory steps late this year.
> #      If the discussion reveals no serious objections the local service
> #      arrangement will start sometime during Q1/1998.

Everything below are just a speculations and you confessed in that
yourself they are just that (though he shyly called them "questions").
The conclusion is another example of political nonsense brought into
this, and threatenning with "boycotting" is a pure example of it.

Sure, the issue in question has some political implications and most
people are aware of it, but we are trying to distantiate from it
by all means. You are bringing it, and only it into the discussion
in a very rude manner. Please restarin from it.

And, BTW, you seems to forgot what you have promised above:

: 	I'd also like to provide some proposals about how to
: 	improve the state of affairs at least for Ukraine.

Though, I'm very glad you did, as I said above.

> 
> 	What are the conclusion of reviewing this document?
> 
> 	1. The document is based on political and historical
> 	   ideas from an epoque of 5 years ago.  They aren't correct
> 	   anymore.
> 	2. The document doesn't provide a solid set of argumentation,
> 	   neither in favor of "RR for xUSSR countries" creation itself,
> 	   nor in favor of creation of this RR in Moscow.
> 
> 	As one can't get enough information from the document itself,
> 	what might be at the background of it?
> 
> 	a. RosNIIROS is a governmental institution, it isn't
> 	   a collaborative organisation.  It's activity reflects
> 	   the policy of a single government -- Russian -- and this
> 	   policy often directly contradicts the interests of
> 	   other xUSSR countries.
> 
> 	b. In the nearest past, Russian government started establishing
> 	   a policy of strong governmental regulation for Internet
> 	   activity on Russian territory.
> 
> 	c. RosNIIROS isn't a single entity in Russia trying to achieve
> 	   the major role in regulating and directing Internet activity.
> 	   Naturally, they also might have an interest in broadening
> 	   their role to the whole xUSSR, to get a bonus in this
> 	   "competition".
> 
> 	d. Holding an RR for a set of adjucent countries will allow
> 	   Russian governmental institutions to monitor Internet
> 	   activities there and even get some influence on them.
> 
> 	e. Being an RR allows providing of the service involves getting
> 	   some funds from the customers, in this case -- from ISPs.
> 	   Probably, governmental funding of RosNIIROS isn't
> 	   enough for them today, and additional funding is
> 	   badly needed.
> 
> 	These are my guesses and impressions, not clear facts.  These
> 	are _questions_.  But one can draw some conclusions even from
> 	questions.
> 
> 	According to discussions with collegues and other interested
> 	parties, here and at Yalta conference, I'd like to finish my comments
> 	with the following conclusions:
> 
> 	Most Ukrainian ISPs are voting against an attempt to establish
> 	an "RR for CIS"; what is CIS, anyway?  By the way, Russia
> 	is a federation itself, so Russia alone is in fact a region.
> 	So creating of RR for Russia in RosNIIROS would be much more correct,
> 	and make it so.
> 
> 	In case RIPE will create a RIPN-based "RR for CIS" it would be
> 	boycotted by most Ukrainian ISPs due to unclear political
> 	and financial reasons of it's creation.  We prefer dealing
> 	with RIPE directly -- our contributions to RIPE are
> 	pretty sufficient for this.  As for new and young LIRs
> 	in Ukraine -- they in fact do have personnel who know
> 	English.  Also Kyiv is much closer to Europe than to
> 	Siberia.
> 
> # 6.Addresses of the Authors
> # 
> # Robert Blokzijl
> # RIPE Chairman
> # <k13 at nikhef.nl>
> # 
> # Daniel Karrenberg
> # RIPE NCC Manager
> # <dfk at ripe.net>
> # 
> # Alexei Platonov
> # RosNIIROS (RIPN) Director
> # <plat at ripn.net>
> # 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Best regards,
> Andrew Stesin
> 
> nic-hdl: ST73-RIPE
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Igor V. Semenyuk                    Internet: iga at sovam.com
SOVAM Teleport                      Phone:    +7 095 258 4170
Moscow, Russia                      Fax:      +7 095 258 4133