[governance] I think we debated this ~7 years ago, but it seems to have come up again...

Sun Oct 23 06:23:35 EDT 2011

This proposal came up for discussions in the APNIC list during Dec 2009. I
sent comments from Internet Society India Chennai on December 1, 2009 to the
Executive Secretary of APNIC. (The PDF file as sent is also attached) :

Comments on the application from the National Internet Exchange of
India to form a NIR in India *Date*: Tue, 1 Dec 2009 11:17:58 +0530

http://mailman.apnic.net/mailing-lists/apnic-talk/archive/2009/12/msg00001.html

The concept of National Internet Registries (as against the Regional
registries such as APNIC) has the potential danger of paving the way
for a geographically – or nationally – fragmented Internet. While the
RIR have already decided to encourage NIR's, ISOC India Chennai wishes
to place on record a general comment common to all NIR's proposed
under the five RIR's:

It is theoretically possible for any National Government to 'separate'
the Internet within its borders by implementing certain policies and
practices peculiar to its English and IDN ccTLD domain space in
combination with specific policies and practices for the IP address
space under its NIR. This possibility makes it all the more important
for the RIR's to ensure that the local policies of the NIRs do not
conflict in any way with regional or global policies.

On the application from the National Internet Exchange of India to
form a NIR in India, ISOC India Chennai comments as follows:

The application to form the NIR in India is filed by the National
Internet Exchange of India (Nixi) together with the Internet Service
Providers Association of India (ISPAI) as a consortium application.
The arrangement proposed by the ISPAI is that Nixi would handle policy
and financial aspects of the NIR while the “full responsibility for
execution” will rest with the ISPAI.

Clause 3.2..2 of the NIR criteria states “NIR must be ... neutral with
respect to the Internet industry ... NIRs should not provide ISP
services ... ...NIRs should not have any special corporate or
contractual relationship with any ISP within their service region.”

Nixi was formed by the Department of Information Technology in
association with the Internet Service Providers Association of India.
At least 34 Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including major Class A
ISPs are part of Nixi as peering ISPs.

The majority of Directors of Nixi are elected by member ISPs. It would
not be entirely correct to assume that Nixi does not have (an
implicit) 'contractual relationship with the ISPs'. By extension, the
NIR proposed as a body jointly promoted by Nixi and ISPAI may not be
free of implied and unspoken contractual relationship with the ISPs.

While ISOC India Chennai observes that the Internet Service Providers
of India have policies and practices that are largely balanced, it
objects – in principle – to the totality of control that the NIR would
offer to the ISPs. In India in particular, the IP address space
policies of the ISPs have favored large bandwidth users with high
revenue bandwidth plans. Static IP addresses were allotted to users on
bandwidth plans in excess of US $ 300 – 500 per month, while the
average user was not assigned a static IP addresses. While APNIC
allots IP address blocks to ISPs at a negligible cost, the ISPs in
India have indirectly gained substantial revenues by controlling IP
address allocation to users. If the ISPAI or an ISPAI-dominant body is
conceded the role of NIR, IP address space may be managed in such a
way that even the abundant Ipv6 addresses offer indirect revenues to
the ISPs. This is part of the rationale behind our hesitation to
unconditionally support this application.

In order to ensure that the proposed application for the NIR in India
meets the provisions of Clause 3.2.2 and other clauses, APNIC may
suggest that

– NIXI should confirm that the proposed NIR would adhere to Internet Core
values

– NIXI should assure that its operational procedures of the proposed
NIR will be non-discriminatory in any way (race, gender, religion,
political ideology, opinion)

– NIXI should make sure that the proposed NIR involves equal and
meaningful participation, not only by the Indian ISP community, but
also by a true representation of the Internet User communities. NIXI
should confirm that it intends to function following a
multi-stakeholder participatory model. In the process Nixi should gain
greater independence from the Government

- NIXI should continue to support the free choice of ISPs to receive
services from the NIR or APNIC and ensure that there are no direct or
indirect pressures on any ISP in India to confine its options to
address space from the NIR. This free choice is of paramount
importance for further development of Internet in India

While ISOC India Chennai has faith in Nixi as a progressive
institution and feels that a Nixi initiative to form an NIR as broadly
agreeable, it wishes to recommend that APNIC does not rush into a
decision to approve the proposal for the NIR and commissions a study
regarding the restriction of allocation of IP addresses in India.
APNIC may have to wait until there is clear evidence that all ISPs and
all stakeholders have been duly consulted and informed on the proposal
to establish the NIR.

The most significant ISPs in India are primarily telephone companies
that have transitioned from the telecom sector. These telco/ISPs are
part of large corporate groups that have caused considerable national
economic development in the process of their own business growth;
Their size and importance places them in a position to wield
considerable influence over Internet policies, which makes it
imperative to ensure that these corporations as ISPs do not gain an
even larger position in the Internet arena that would be difficult to
balance.

-----------------------------------------  end of comments in the APNIC list
on Dec 1, 2009 (as posted  in the form of the PDF as attached )

Sivasubramanian M

http://isocindiachennai.org

On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Carlos A. Afonso <ca at cafonso.ca> wrote:

> On 10/23/2011 07:29 AM, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> [...]
> > In Europe there used to exist "national" internet registries, named
> > at the time "Last Resort registries". With the development of
> > knowledge etc there were abandoned. In many countries, a local ISP
> > business will rather go to a "neutral" central registry, than to a
> > "competitor" local registry. This all is a complicated matter, but
> > the current system works and is stable.
>
> I agree, the current system in which you have basically two options (NIR
> or otherwise) is stable in both cases.
>
> frt rgds
>
> --c.a.
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