Hi Before i start the proposal i would like to ask a question, what ever happened to the Organisation object? Was is ever put in the DB? If not why not? as i am sure it got concensus. Ok the proposal. Background: We the evil UUNET/WorldCom in Europe have only one nework. AS702 covers all of our existing networks and is numbered out of all the LIR's we currently run - 17 in total - so AS702 is really a non contiguous AS with 120,000 routes. Back in the old days it was never invisaged that networks would ever get this large and the current concept of conservation, conservation, conservation, aggregation does not really support very large networks - i am not against conservation of IPv4 it just needs a fresh look. This proposal by definition will not appeal to all and will most certinly cause some to view this whole idea as "UUNET trying to use its muscle", believe me its not. We have to look at this proposal in the context of a very large network desperate the reduce the amount of prefixes on the routers before we hit the memory wall on routers and just the shear logistics of managing the aggreagation internal and external and assignment policies. We like to concept of Supernational Registries but all that really does is lump all of your current LIR bills into one and does not really help the aggregation issues as the growth patterns in differant registries are vast and range from near stagnent due to country specific reasons to the explosive growth, with various levels in between. This means that as a SuperNational it would be impossable to aggregate and reach 80% usage over the registries CIDR. The process of aggregation would force the planning of sub-allocation to give more than the immediate needed IPspace to allow for growth, much the same way RIPE does now when allocating to large LIR's and new LIR's. They will allocate a /20 and mark the contiguous /20 as "use last" this same pattern of sub-allocation needs to happen a level below RIR's and above LIR's - the MIR (multinational internet registry). The multinational registry (MIR) is not a means by which a large comapany with a very large network would have an advantage over LIR's. The LIR structure is still needed to provide local knowledge assignment and local aggregation, it will not replace LIR's just manage the overall aggregation of a large block of IP space and sub-allocate to them. It will not be limited by the 80% usage constraint but that by no way gives the MIR a free hand. Rather than being constrained by a fixed number (the numbers would have to be realistic) the MIR is governed by business nedds and routing requirements which the NCC would have to be informed of and understand. This does not mean the MIR ignore all of RIPE policy ie. /20 for startups etc. rather we self manage the policies (as we do now) as the NCC does but the IP blocks are allocated out of one very large block say a /11 in accordance with current assignment policy. A /11 i here you gasp, well a /11 is not an unreasonable size we have more than that now. If we knew now how big the network was to get then we probably would have created this sort of concept from day one, one thing we can be sure of its not going to shrink. Just think how much better all our routing tables would be if we could renumber into a single larger contiguous block, but we can not. This problem is not going to go away and IPV4 will be around for a while yet so rather than compounding the problem by continuing in this blinkered fashion of fragmenting large networks i think we should take this fresh look at the way the current admin structure is interfering with current network planning, with commercial impacts that brings. Looking a little into the future i think this structure would help with IPV6 too. The only differance is we know how big the networks are and what we need to create a well aggregated IPV6 network now with MIR's. Summary: Please do not look at this and close your mind because it does not affect your network it may do one day. From a purely community oriented spirit it is meant to try and improve overall aggregation, from a purely buiness point of view it makes sense to add another level of managment without complicating it but only for those who need it. RIR - Would still continue to admin the IP space for both MIR's and LIR's for the good of the community. MIR - Would manage the allocation (large ) from RIR and suballocate to LIR's aggregating the network correctly but be responsible to RIR for their actions LIR - Would assign space to infrastructure and customers as usual but would either be directly in contact with the NCC or via the MIR. I hope this does not cause too much controversie it is not my intention. Regards Stephen Burley UUNET EMEA Hostmaster SB855-RIPE