[ppml] ARIN meeting virtual attendance

[jlewis at lewis.org]

As is pretty clear from recent threads, there are ARIN members who, for 
whatever reasons, don't or can't attend the public meetings, but would 
like to have some input into ARIN's policies as well as voice their 
concerns over the current state of ARIN <-> member interaction.

Since we're a relatively high-tech group, has anyone ever looked into what
it takes to setup virtual attendance?  i.e. I'm guessing a good number of
network operators have either participated DoveBid's auctions (getting the
network and office goodies at auction from your failed telecom
competitors) or know people who have.  I've personally been to these both
in person and virtually.  In virtual mode, you get to listen in on the
auction and speak when necessary (i.e. to bid).  With a bit of hardware, I
bet this could even be done with VOIP, removing the need for anyone (ARIN
or the members) to pay for the long distance calls for virtual attenders.  
I don't know what hardware/software is involved in this (i.e. what DoveBid 
uses), but IIRC, ARIN does have several million in the bank.  What better 
way to spend our money than to facilitate member participation?

I think this would be a great way to get more member participation at the
meetings...and (for personal reasons) it's the only way I can see myself
getting to a meeting in the near future.

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