Industry Forums > Wireless Service Providers > Own ARIN IPs

Own ARIN IPs

Define size.

We did it when we added another provider, by that time we were at 1400+ customers.
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I survived Hale-Bopp!

reply to Inssomniak
Tough question.

Personally I feel we should have done it years ago and we're not at the size of Rhaas yet.

One of the main reasons I want it is so that we are able to properly do BGP and multihoming. So for uptime and reliability, you may want this a lot earlier than you think.

Another reason I'm wanting this so badly is our upstream provider is lacking in the communications department. I've had issues with court orders for IP information hit us a week late because our upstream provider couldn't get their ducks in line and pick up the phone. (Not the voltage crapola) That alone makes me want to drop them entirely.

It makes things more complicated, and you're now directly responsible for your reputation on the internet etc. But in the end we need that as our upstream isn't doing it properly IMHO.

reply to Rhaas

reply to Inssomniak
If you're doing a provider switch then I would seriously recommend it. Multihomed or not.

At least this time if you ever switch, or become multihomed, you'll take your IPs with you. No more reconfiguring stuff. No more massive moves.

Also consider what I said about network responsibility. Upstream providers are not perfect with communications. So at least with your name on the block, you know the buck stops with you.

A move would be the absolute perfect time to do this. Get it done and over with and you're golden from there.

reply to Inssomniak
I got a /23 when i had 100 subscribers and decided to stop natting while i had the chance, and before my network grew to the point where changing everything to bring in routing would be too difficult.

Do it once, Do it right.

reply to voxframe
Actually I was doing some reading and, it appears I have to be multi homed to get an AS number so I can announce any IP range?
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OptionsDSL Wireless Internet
»www.optionsdsl.ca

reply to voxframe
Except that in some parts of the world, multihoming is a pre-requisit to obtaining your own AS number.

Just like it may also be a requirement for obtaining your own block of IPs.

Typically if you a single homed, the answer is "keep on obtaining IPs from your current provider."

That is unless you can demonstrate that you'll be multihomed "shortly" and thus your own IPs and ASN are imperative.

(Thats how it operated with APNIC anyway IIRC.)

edit: and thats what I get for not reading all the way to the end of the thread. I should be better at this by now..... :P

reply to Inssomniak
If you are single homed, there is kind of no real advantage to BGP anyway.

With many providers you can, however, run BGP using one of the private ASNs. This allows you to do some of the things you do with your own public ASN, like hot standby links and BGP load balancing. Perhaps the only thing you dont get is your own ASN appearing in AS paths around the globe (since your provider will strip out your private ASN before they announce your route to other networks.)

But you still get to advertise and receive routes between each other using BGP, you can apply communities, play with localpref and MED, etc.

The difficulty then becomes when you finally do multihome, you have to change your ASN all over your network. Alternatively you could take the easy way out and retain the private ASN you were using, and just make it a "confederation" that appears as your public ASN.

The only thing I was generally interested in right now, is that if in a few years I want to change providers again, I dont have to renumber my entire network again.

I suspect I will be multi homed, but not for 3+ years, when I need to add another provider or have 2 links to the same provider.
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OptionsDSL Wireless Internet
»www.optionsdsl.ca

I suspect a lot of people suspect the same things.

The RIRs will probably want some solid foundation to base their decision on, rather than "It could happen in a few years." Especially now with IP space as tight as it is.

In 3 years time, IPv6 will hopefully be multitudes more popular than it is now. I would probably start proofing and prep'ing your network for IPv6 instead, which by that stage may be your primary protocol, and IPv4 the side thought...

Just something to consider.

Ok Cool thanks for the advice

reply to Inssomniak
Yes you are right, i got a /22 instead of a /23 from APNIC

With APNIC you do have to provide the AS numbers of your two upstreams - but I just filled out the form and put my upstream's AS number as one, and used a 'possible' alternative upstream provider as the second one - even though a year later i am still not connected to them.

I have a couple of AS numbers, but i just get my upstream provider to announce them and route them to the ip address of my routers wan port which is a tail on their network.

reply to Inssomniak
If/when you are Multihomed you need to prove a full /23 via SWIPE to ARIN before they will allocate a /22 IPV4. I've been in this fight for a year now. I can't get a full /23 from my Upstreams (a /24 and a couple of /27's right now) because both of them just refuse to provide me more IPs, and ARIN doesn't give a shit that their dumb ass policy has no teeth in it towards the Upstreams and at the same time they (ARIN) have ZERO flexibility to try to accommodate the small ISP, or to help us attain IPs..... So it's a ONE WAY policy designed to keep the little guys little and let the big guys do as they please. Kinda like the school yard really. Quite a Cluster F__.

reply to Inssomniak
It was a two part process for us to get our AS, and IP Space.

For the AS it was simple - show that you have two upstream providers via billing records and or contracts.

For the IP space it was a bit more complicated as I was trying to qualify for a /20. You must show your current allocation utilization, plus intended growth. I had a /21, 2 x /23, and a /24 from our upstream. I just created a spreadsheet and broke it into generic areas or by town. and showed the pool sizes and the utilization and 1 year forcasted.

»www.arin.net/policy/nrpm.html#four2

Has all the info you need.
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I survived Hale-Bopp!

reply to Inssomniak
You also need to show that you are currently 80% utilized or they give push back.

reply to Inssomniak
So far the process seems to be going smoothly for us.

ASN is assigned and the block is being evaluated.
We have a minor hangup on the fact that one of our upstream providers doesn't want to "reassign" the block formally to us, but I think they will budge.

Hopefully that's the only hangup.

For those who need to prove 80% utilization, what form of proof do they need? Something like an excel spreadsheet showing assignments etc?

reply to Inssomniak
yes, an excel spready will do:
Region (area)
Service Type (WISP)
Subnet/s Assigned
Total IP's available
Active Customers
Homes passed
Peak Utilization %

If you have public IP's assigned to anything such as devices or customers needing one this needs to be documented as well in another spready:
IP/Subnet
Customer Name/Device Name
Purpose

I have the following (not saying this is correct, just that this is what I used when I applied)

Sheet 1: Dynamic Pools.
Each subnet (pool) is a row, with the following columns: Subnet, City/Region, Assignment Type (DHCP/PPPoE/Static), Service type (Wireless, Dialup, DSL, FTTH), Total customer usable IP Addresses, Number of actual Customers & Peak Utilization.

Sheet 2: Static IP's
I have reserved space for customer static assignments. so the first row is the reserved subnet as a whole. Each own under that is an individual customer with the columns of: Subnet, Customer.

Sheet 3: Internal Use
I have reserved subnets for internal server, etc.
The first row is the subnet, each row under that is the assignment out of that subnet. Repeating as the subnet changes. Here I have the following columns: Subnet/IP Address, Device Name/DNS, Use. Also I have the reserved space for our /30's listed here.

Sheet 4: Shared Webhosting
Here I have our webservers listed on each row with the columns of: IP Address, Hosts. The hosts are all the web sites hosted on that server.
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I survived Hale-Bopp!