On Thu, 19 May 1994 12:23:33 +0200 Erik-Jan Bos wrote:
As Last Resort IR for The Netherlands I received a request for address space (one C network) from an individual. The person requesting address space tells me he has several machines at home able to talk IP and he wants to interconnect them.
Since he has plans to connect his LAN at home to the Internet some day in the future he asks for an official IP network number (which means RFC1597 is of no help in this case).
IMHO, this is a question which we will see in an increasingly frequency in the near future. Think of what happens if IP functionality is built in to Microsoft software...
I'd like to know whether you have received requests like this before, and how you aproached this issue, since I think "we all" should have a common attitude in Europe (better: world-wide) on this.
A couple of random thoughts: - If this person is who I think he is, then his current involvement in TCP/IP is Licensed Amateur Radio related. A class A network number (44.0.0.0) has been designated for this purpose on a worldwide scale. They also use a distributed addressing scheme. To find out the local IR in that case, ask the worldwide coordinator: Brian Kantor <brian@ucsd.edu> Please note that this organisation is very efficient in assigning address space because they assign *one* IP address per person in the default case (people can get more if they ask; most don't). The AMPRnet has been using classless routing, CIDR etc for some years now. (CB applications are *not* valid for network 44 because of strict AUP rules as defined by the government. I know that, at least in the Netherlands, CB persons have nicked network 27.0.0.0 for the same application, but this number has not been assigned to them) - If this person only has a few hosts, then it is probably a good idea to ask him to renumber once he connects to the Internet. I don't believe that renumbering 3 PC's would be that much of a problem. 1597 might be useful after all.. No comments on the general case of individuals asking for IP address space. I hope that my ideas help in this specific case though. Geert Jan