[44net] On Allocations, PoPs, and Proposals

Hello everyone, I, along with the board and staff, have been reading these messages. First of all, I want you all to know that YOU ARE HEARD. The point of having the TAC put out a proposal was to get feedback before adoption. It turns out that a significant part of the feedback is negative. I think that this proposal needs more work and adjustment before we can consider implementing it. The board and I want to see consensus on the main points of a proposal among the major schools of thought on this mailing list. That said, it’s important to remember that the people on this list are not the only people using the AMRPnet. We have a complex task on our hands to reach as many of those people as possible as we evolve proposals toward consensus. Several board members have suggested that it's hard to find consensus on solutions until we have a consensus on what problem(s) the solutions are trying to solve. We have a tangle of issues like the complexity of IPIP tunnels, to BGP routing, to address space sparseness, to low performance. With this in mind, what problems with the AMPRnet do you think we should be trying to solve first? One thing we haven't communicated well before, is that we are actively discussing budget and infrastructure for a “backbone” network of PoPs (Points of Presence) of the 44net on various continents, to make it easier for hams to connect to the AMPRnet with minimal effort and higher performance. If you have ideas about how you would like to see this happen, feel free to share here on the mailing list. I know that there’s at least one alternative proposal on the way. There’s obviously more discussion to be had, but for now, please rest assured that no changes are going to be made without more input from you and others using the AMPRnet. I also want to thank the TAC for their work up to this point. They have dedicated hundreds of hours to come up with this proposal. Even if its release has cause some heated discussion, it’s critical that these discussions happen. They will help all of us come up with the best solution for how to most effectively organize our network for the future. 73, Rosy -- Rosy Wolfe - KJ7RYV Executive Director Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) ampr.org