Recently, one of our Transit providers has started requiring a Letter of Authorization for addition of any of our own Transit customers' prefixes to their filters. The verbiage of the LoA basically states that the owner of the assignment or allocation (not necessarily our customer) allows us to advertise their prefixes through our service.
Is this a common practice? Our past experience indicates that a simple request to a NOC or update of a routing registry usually is sufficient.
Regards,
Mauricio Rodriguez
FPL Fibernet, LLC
It's not unheard of. Most providers don't require it, but I have run into a few who do. It's a minor PITA compared to the web interfaces some providers make you use to request filter updates.
I dont mind, i think it is another good step towards 'good filtering'
but...i think the PITA part is
downstream 'clueless' customers, who may need an explanation on prefix
hijacking and the state
of the internet today, and that these are all just combined efforts to
minimize the risk of accepting allocations
that don't belong to you.
Christian
Is this a common practice? Our past experience indicates that a simple
request to a NOC or update of a routing registry usually is sufficient.
Regards,
Mauricio Rodriguez
FPL Fibernet, LLC
Cogent AFAIK have been doing this for years. Not many others require this
unless there is a serious question over the request.
Randy
IMO, it's just an illusion of added security and is really just CYA for the provider. When I fax TWTelecom an LOA that a customer faxed to me, how does TWTelecom verify the authenticity of that LOA? I doubt they try. I suspect it's just filed, and will only be pulled out if the advertisement is challenged by some 3rd party.
