[6bone] pTLA request by NECTEC-TH - review closes 10 March 2003

[Bob Fink]

Philip,

At 11:44 AM 2/27/2003 +1000, Philip Smith wrote:
>I'm generally curious why organisations which are members of the various 
>RIRs are still coming to request 6BONE address space. Global IPv6 address 
>space is global IPv6 address space, whether it comes from the 6bone, or in 
>this case, from APNIC, so I'm wondering why NECTEC feel that it is 
>necessary to comply with the 6bone rules rather than simply requesting 
>their IPv6 address block from APNIC under their existing APNIC membership. 
>Both address spaces will work on a testbed, the benefit of the RIR space 
>being that it is real, not experimental, and is unlikely to be withdrawn 
>when the 6bone experiment finishes in the future.

Before I put a pTLA request out for review I ask the requester why they 
aren't getting a production prefix. Generally it boils down to wanting to 
try IPv6 services without committing to a production prefix, sometime for 
cost reasons, sometimes for organizational reasons.

If the reply seems plausible/reasonable to me, I then put the request out 
for review. In the case of NECTEC-TH, they replied:

>1. Why are you not applying for a production IPv6 prefix from APNIC?
>because our mission is to deploy IPv6 for testing purpose only. In fact,
>NECTEC has another division named GITS, providing commercial services
>for Thai goverment agencies. However, it is operated with their own
>policy and NOC. Applying for production IPv6 address on behalf of all
>NECTEC (not just Thailand's IPv6 testbed research project like us) must
>be directly in charge of them as well. Yet they are still very new to
>IPv6 and want us to help study and build up know-how. But at the same
>time, we can't set our scope only to furnish IPv6 for GITS but also for
>outside NECTEC, any domestic organizations with TESTING purposes
>according to our project's goal.

As an aside, I don't believe anyone would contend that recent pTLA holders 
(i.e., last several years) couldn't do what they wanted with a production 
prefix. Yet there does seem to be a need for other than production 
prefixes. As Itojun pointed out, there is also a plan for RIR delegated 
experimental prefixes, at least from APNIC. This might work for some folk 
as well.


Bob