What do you want?

Kim Hubbard wrote:

Some of this is a repeat of my previous diatribe but I wanted to
specifically
address Kim's points.  ctrl d now...

> 
> From the beginning several of you have questioned the estimated budget
> of approximately two million (not three million) dollars stating that
> ARIN could be run with a staff of three or four.  For those who believe
> this you need to decide if this is what you really want.  Maybe we
> could run ARIN with this minimal staff, if you don't care about quality
> of service.
> 
> You have to decide how important, as an ISP, IP numbers are to you.  Is
> it okay with you to have your allocations take weeks, or months, since
> we won't have the staff to handle all of the requests in a timely manner?
>

2 hour response would be great, no more than 24 hours.  Also, have
enough
operators on duty to keep the busy signals down to a minimum.  For great
service I would pay half again as much (God, did I say that?)

> Is it acceptable to hire mediocre engineering staff?  Or to understaff
> the engineering group to save you a couple of dollars?
> 

Nope.

> Should we ignore the allocation policies to help conserve address and
> routing table space because they only mean more staff are required to
> review requests?
> 

Nope.  We will follow the rules but we want rapid response.  After all
it takes a lot of work to get the data ready.

> Yes, we could automate address assignments and just give every requester
> what they ask for, is this what you want?
> 

For my company yes.  Screw the rest. ;-)

> Currently, the IP group has a staff of five employees reviewing IP
> requests, allocating addresses and ASNs, registering in-addr information,
> SWIPs and helpdesk and we are understaffed.  This number does not
> include any engineering, admin or accounting support.
> 
> The proposed ARIN staff calls for an engineering staff of four.  Maybe
> we'll be lucky and find one person who's an expert network engineer,
> programmer, dba, sys admin, webmaster, etc. and doesn't mind working or
> being on call 24 x 7.  If you know of such as person, great send him/her
> over.  Of course, they'll have to be willing to work for less than the
> going rate because some of you also don't believe that ARIN should
> be paying staff the same amount as other Internet-related companies pay.
> 

The fees are reasonable.  You will be judged on performance and
fairness, period.
IMO Don't focus so much or be so apologetic for price, rather, make it
work - well.

> ARIN is your company, not mine.  If its service doesn't meet your
> needs it will effect your business, your livelihood.  Isn't it better
> to do it right?
> 

There is no doubt this is correct.  The questions raised can only be
answered by
actual performance in the future.  All else is speculation.  I read
previously
that ARIN was starting with a class A and further allocations will be
given
based on success.  Seems perfectly reasonable to me. If the doubts other
folks
have come to fruition with ARIN, then we move to plan B (whatever that
is).

Mike Gaddis
Executive Vice President & CTO
Savvis Communications