Mark,

Attempting to place policy into an environment where the
are multiple entities operating the policy will always
create issues, and you have highlighted a number of
good points.

The regional registeries attempt to allocate IP numbers
to clients in a fashion which is similar in the three
areas of operation, and there is a deliberate effort to
ensure that the respective policies are both
consistent, and applied consistently. This effort is 
at times non-trivial as synchronisation of interpretation
of policy is difficult even in the most cooperative
of environments.

The _intent_ of multiple registeries in the same name
space is to allow differentiation based on service,
cost and other services which may be bundled up (i.e.
domain name registration is part of the access service, OR
with your domain name you get all kinds of other goodies,
OR whatever). Registrars may operate solely as a registrar,
or may offer the service as part of some other service. It
is impossible to artifically restrict potential business
models in this domain, and therefore impractical to attempt
to do so.

The NON-intent is to have differentiation based on different
interpretations of the policy - ie the user shops around until
the user finds a registrar that is willing to undertake the
task.

Your comments are helpful, and I'm sure the asn.au folk
are listening. I've voiced the intention to look carefully
at the asn.au experience and look at its applicability
for the sld's I currently administer (edu.au. gov.au, info.au).
It _may_ be that the policy constraints on gov and edu are
such that the competitive registrar environment is 
not appropriate. However I am optimistic that with the
right amount of rough consensus regarding policy, and
running code, courtesy of Michael Malone, we can emerge
with a more rational inclusive environment here, which is
attuned to the requirements of the local Internet community
and also conforms to the more general public policy intention
of industry self-regulation.

Thanks,

  Geoff

Generic disclaimer:
I should note that I am speaking as the DNA for gov.au, edu.au and
info.au. These domains are administered by myself as an individual,
and my comments here have no bearing on any views that may be held by
my employer.



---

Geoff Huston
Internet Technology, Telstra

  gih§telstra.net       http://www.telstra.net/gih