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19 November 2004
Dear Paul,
Having read
your document, I find many valuable information and opinions, which I
share with you without hesitation and reservation. However, I also find
some misunderstandings to my proposals on IPv6. To avoid further confusions
and unnecessary reactions, I would like to provide you with the following
clarifications on my positions:
1) My draft text in question is in fact a draft input to an internal
ITU Working Group on WSIS, which will meet in December 2004. In reply
to the request of this Group, I prepared this draft input. To save time
and for the sake of tranparancy, I posted it on ITU-T web site for public
comments. My targeted public is the ITU-T Members. As indicated in the
paper, I will prepare an "official" input to that Group after
15 November. I am very pleased to advice you that by the deadline of 15
November, I received a number of comments from the ITU-T Members, as well
as a few from non-Members including your document. I will take care all
comments from ITU-T Members and non-Members to prepare my "official"
input to the ITU Council Working Group on WSIS.
2) In your paper, there are plenty of historical events and explainations
on the development of IPv6/IPv4 and on the work done by RIRs. I found
those information and opinions very important and very relevant to the
ICT society. I share those views with you. As you might have noted, I
have supported RIRs from the very begining when I started my role of TSB
Director in 1999, and I have been working to strengthen the cooperation
between ITU and RIRs since then. One example, the IPv6 workshop ITU-T
organized in 2002 received a lot of useful information from RIRs. ITU
highly appreciated the presense of RIRs at that workshop. Another good
example of our cooperation would be the ENUM trials, which I always referred
as a model of cooperation between ITU and a private sector member. If
you could agree, I would be pleased to invite RIRs to provide tutorial
sessions on their competences to the ITU Members. I believe such tutorial
sessions would be welcomed by the ITU Members.
On the other hand, the problems I mentioned in my paper on the assignments
of IPv4 addresses should be considered as a historical lesson. Whether
you and I would share the same views on the problems is another issue.
However, I would like to remind you a fact that in my draft paper, I do
not present any critism to the work of RIRs. Ï am very pleased to
note that in the part of "IPv4 Address Space:..." of your paper,
you indicate that ITU refers to...(problems), BUT RECOGNISES CORRECTLY
that the current RIR system has successfully addressed that problem".
I would like to reconfirm to you that we will continue to support RIRs
on its handling the allocations of IPv4 addresses as well as IPv6 addresses.
We are also looking forward to strengthening our cooperation wherever
possible.
3) I got an impression that the rest of your paper was based on a misunderstanding
on my proposals. Please allow me to refer to some of those statements
in your paper. The first sentence of your "Summary" starts with
"The ITU memorandum has proposed a new IPv6 address space distribution
process, based solely on national authorities." At its fifth para,
the paper accused ITU "Rather than addressing ..., the ITU memorandum
proposes a unifrom model of Internet address distribution as a public
activity within autonomous national boundaires." In the part "Diversity",
the first para again refer to "avoiding the ...of a uniformly imposed
public sector approach, based solely on national address distribution
models" and further down to its third para, the paper says "there
is no valid reason to impose a single uniform administrative model upon
each regional community... In the part "IPv6 Address space Disteribution",
your paper accuses my proposal "based on the premise that transforming
IP addresses to a national resuource will ensure ...IPv6 ... avoid the
problems that are allegedly experiences with IPv4 distribution."
and in its third para, your paper again accuses "The ITU memorandum
proposes a new independent and unproven process for IPv6 address space
distribution, based on solely on national authorities."
I would accept your arguments as listed above if I did "propose
a uniform model...within autonomous national boundaries" or "a
new IPv6 address space distribution process, based solely on national
authorities" (both quoted above). However, if I argue with you that
the base of your comments is not true, what you would tell me? How would
you explain to me your understanding on my sentence in 4.2 (b): "By
assigning addresses to countries, we will enable any particular user to
choose their preferred source of address: either the country-assigned
ones or the region/international-assigned ones. A competition between
the country registration agency and the regional registration agencies
will exist, but people will have a good choice." Here, do you see
any sign that I have proposed a new system "based solely on national
authorities"? A few words before this sentence, I put my idea as
"to reserve a block of IPv6 address for allocation by authorities
of countries, that is, assigning a block to a coutnry at no cost and letting
the country itself manage this kind of address in IPv6". I draw your
attention to those words "to reserve a block of IPv6 address".
Do you understand these words as "the whole set of IPv6 addresses"?
As ITU has received from time to time some voices from developing countries
to have IP addresses free of charge, the sovereignty related to internet
governance often refered to the address issues, the very huge amount of
IPv6 addresses capability, and technical feasibility to assign a block
(not clear about the size) to countries for their own management as one
of possible arrangements, etc.. all these have driven me to make my proposal
as shown in 4.2 (b) of my paper. I would like to confirm to you that I
have not proposed a uniform system based solely on national authorities
in my paper, and I will not propose such a system as the only system in
the future. What I have proposed in my paper is to offer one system, as
one of many systems, including national ones, regional ones, multinational
ones, and international ones. I do not expect that "my system"
will avoid all problems we have learnt from the IPv4 processes. I thought
"my system" could help address the sovereigntiy issue. I would
agree with you that it is not proved yet. It might fail in the end. We
do not know the result and we will have to wait to see. However, I have
not expected such a system can address all problems, particularly technical
problems, we learnt from the IPv4. I am fully aware of the technical problems,
the administrative problems, the implementation problems, etc. which are
associated with the deployment of IPv6 systems, so that I conclude my
short para of 4.2 (b) by the following sentence: "The details and
constraints, in particular issues related to routing table size, could
be further discussed if this proposal encounters favor." Do you see
my ignarance on those problems from this sentence? If yes, I would be
glad to modify it if you could provide me a better sentence.
I do not believe I have to remind you another fact that ITU-T Rec. E.164
provides a base not only for a worldwide public telephone numbering scheme
based on national territories, but also for a set of numberings for global
usage, ie. 800-series numberings, which are not limited to the national
boundaries.
4) Having explained my views on your comments, I would once again re-emphasize
my sincere thanks to you all for your attention to my paper, and for your
efforts to provide me with your comments, although I do not share with
them completely. I am particularly pleased with the last part of your
paper "conclusion", which provides your desire to discuss with
ITU on this important issue under a friendly term. I would like to assure
you that ITU woud welcome any comments from you, no matter whether they
are positive or negative. A fair and open dialogue between RIRs and ITU
will bring benefits to the whole family and the public. I will keep you
informed with future development on my paper and I would be glad to continue
to receive your comments.
5) I appreciated your advice that you have put your comments on your
web. I would be pleased if you could add my reply to the same web site
where you have posted your document.
Best regards,
Houlin
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