IP address allocations - PI, PA etc

[essayer]

Have a small hosting business that has about 30-40 customers and 300 IP addresses in use. We currently go through one provider who owns these IP addresses, and most are 'sublet' on to customers.

Obviously this ties us to the provider. How do we go about getting our own allocation so we are not tied to a particular provider? What sort of costs are involved? I've tried looking at the RIPE website but it's a bit confusing

I will get someone else to set it up, but just curious as to how it all works

[JamieBeeston]

You'd have to become an LIR as PI space really isnt done these days.

So long as you can demonstrate a requirement, and they approve you, costs would be around a few grand a year and you'd likely get a /20 or /21 (2-4000 ips)

Just checked our last invoice
Services of RIPE NCC for the year 2010/SMALL
EUR 1850.00

Once you've been approved and allocated your IP block, you then need to find a provider who will announce them for you (alot wont as it means additional work and config on their routers) or look at taking the next step of running your own network.

J

[essayer]

thanks Jamie

So provided we had a transit feed from the provider they could announce our 'block' for us?
If we had two providers, could they both announce our block? Providing a redundant route?
I assume we'd need to have a router that could handle it as well, as we are all layer 2 at present..

[JamieBeeston]

essayer said:

thanks Jamie

So provided we had a transit feed from the provider they could announce our 'block' for us?
If we had two providers, could they both announce our block? Providing a redundant route?
I assume we'd need to have a router that could handle it as well, as we are all layer 2 at present..

You would need to talk to your transit providers, if you want multiple providers announcing you then you need your own BGP network, or someone to provide a BGP service for you.. again, speak to your providers.

[essayer]

Yup, will speak to them..just want to make sure I know enough about what I'm asking for!