APNIC Our role in Internet Governance

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APNICOur role in Internet Governance

• Paul Wilson
• Director General
• APNIC

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Topics for today

• What is the Internet?
• how does it work?
• and how is it governed?
• What are RIRs
• what do they do?
• how do they work?
• and what about IPv6?

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First, what is the Internet?

• A Network of Networks
• Independent networks joining a single global
  infrastructure
• A Dumb network
• IP end-end packet delivery
• TCP end-end session control
• Intelligence is in applications, at the edges
• Open standards
• Anyone can implement standards
• No license fees on core standards
• Minimal administration
• No centralised operational control
• Minimal centralised administration

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History of the Internet

• 1970s Initially, research project
• Open, cooperative, collaborative, public domain
• Rough consensus and running code
• 1990s - Product of liberalisation
• And, a catalyst for deregulation
• Highly competitive
• Still free to join and use
• 2000s - A public utility
• Still the same network TCP/IP
• But now a critical global infrastructure
• Re-regulation (governance) is a recent
  afterthought

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What is Internet Governance?

• Any aspect of the Internet which requires
  regulation, coordination or oversight
• Cybercrime, security, spam, phishing, hacking
• Content regulation
• Commerce, competition, trade and taxation
• Intellectual property
• Development and education, capacity building
• Equity of access
• Technical standards and coordination
• None of these are brand new areas!

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Internet Governance
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Internet Governance
DiploFoundation www.diplomacy.edu
Lawrence Lessig www.lessig.org
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Internet technical coordination

• AKA the code layer (Lessig)
• One aspect of Internet governance
• Internet standards development
• DNS administration
• DNS infrastructure coordination
• IP address and related resource management
• Includes activities of several types
• Administrative
• Operational
• Standards and technical policy

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Internet Address Management

• A model for Internet coordination

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Whats an IP Address?

• Internet infrastructure addresses
• Uniquely assigned to Internet endpoints
• Public addresses are globally visible
• Addresses are a finite Common Resource
• Addresses are v4 or v6
• IPv4 4 billion unique addresses
• IPv6 256 million trillion addresses?
• Not the same as DNS!

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Internet Address Routing
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Address management 19811992
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Global routing table 1988 1992
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Global routing table Projection
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Global Allocations 1983 1991
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Regional Internet Registries
1992
It has become clear that these problems are
likely to become critical within the next one to
three years. (RFC1366) it is now desirable
to consider delegating the registration function
to an organization in each of those geographic
areas. (RFC 1338)
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Regional Internet Registries
Today
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Regional Internet Registries

• Industry self-regulatory bodies
• Open membership-based structures
• Non-profit, neutral and independent
• in the Internet Tradition, since 1993.
• Functions
• Allocation and registration services
• Training and education
• Open policy meetings and processes
• Proven success
• Best practice in Internet Governance

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Success Global routing table
http//bgp.potaroo.net/as1221/bgp-active.html
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Success Global allocations
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Success Global allocations
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Success Whats the secret?
OPEN
Anyone can participate
TRANSPARENT
BOTTOM UP
Internet community proposes and approves policy
All decisions policies documented freely
available to anyone
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Success Whats the secret?
RIR Open Policy Process
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What are RIRs?

• Service organisations
• Representative of ISPs globally
• Industry self-regulatory structures
• Non-profit, neutral and independent
• Open membership-based bodies
• First established in early 1990s
• Voluntarily by consensus of community
• To satisfy emerging technical/admin needs
• In the Internet Tradition
• Consensus-based, open and transparent

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What do RIRs do?

• Internet resource allocation
• Primarily, IP addresses IPv4 and IPv6
• Receive resources from IANA/ICANN, and
  redistribute to ISPs on a regional basis
• Registration services (whois)
• Policy development and coordination
• Open Policy Meetings and processes
• Training and outreach
• Training courses, seminars, conferences
• Liaison IETF, ITU, APT, PITA, APEC
• Publications
• Newsletters, reports, web site

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How do RIRs do it?

• Open and transparent processes
• Decision-making
• Policy development
• Open participation
• Democratic, bottom-up processes
• Membership structure
• 100 Self-funded through membership fees
• National Internet Registries (APNIC)
• Community support (APNIC)
• HRD - training
• RD fund
• Fellowships received and given
• Open source software development

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What about IPv6?

• IPv4 address space is limited
• Free pool will be consumed in 2011
• Management policies are being adapted (for
  recovery and transfer of space, etc)
• IPv6 adoption is very slow
• There is still little incentive for transition
• ISPs need business case in terms of cost-benefit
  ratio
• IPv4 is still working fine too well in fact
• But IPv6 adoption will accelerate from now on
  we hope!

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The Internet Model

• The Internet works
• The dot com boom seems to prove it
• As some have said
• If its not broken, dont fix it, do no harm,
  lets not reinvent the wheel
• Improvement may be needed, of course
• What are the problems?
• Often, specific issue or problem are unclear
• Many problems have different solutions
• Solution is Evolution not Revolution
• Processes are constantly evolving
• Anyone can participate
• If you have an interest, get involved!

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Thank You

• Paul Wilson
• pwilson_at_apnic.net