Change registry. Keep the addresses your network uses.
What does registry portability mean in practice? Lu Heng’s 2024 proposal starts with the cost of having no usable exit.
Lu Heng · Original recording in English
Imagine changing a service provider meant giving up the addresses your customers and systems already use. The cost of moving could make a choice on paper impossible in practice.
Lu Heng argues that networks should be able to change the body registering their Internet number resources while keeping those resources. That is what portability means here. The recording presents his November 2024 proposal to make it a required part of the ICP-2 revision, concerning the criteria for regional Internet registries.
Watch the argument
His test is practical: if a registry fails, has a conflict of interest or abuses its position, can the operator actually leave? An exit that requires the network to start over offers little protection to the people depending on it.
What would give the operator a real choice?
His later Bill of Rights brings portability together with accurate records and the continued operation of working networks. These are rights he advocates building into the system. Note 72 explains how they fit together; the phishing recording shows why dependence on a registry can become a source of pressure.