[ppml] Re: Independent space from ARIN

[Sweeting, John]

hmmmmm....that is quite the opposite experience from the oneI had when
transferring a very large sum of addresses from one of the largest Tier 1
providers to the company that bought us. ARIN staff worked with us all the
way to make it a smooth and straight forward transfer. Of course it probably
helped that all our address space was accounted for and our records were
well maintained and documented. I am not saying that ARIN is perfect but
they do one hell of a job given the task at hand. Again just my personal
opinion from my years of experience with ARIN.

-----Original Message-----
From: william at elan.net
To: ppml at arin.net
Sent: 4/22/03 3:33 PM
Subject: RE: [ppml] Re: Independent space from ARIN

The author was overestimating the numbers to make his point, I agree.
(I'm sure its not 99%, but its probably more then 75% - which is not
much 
better in overall picture). Trying to say the problems do not exist is 
just not the way to deal with it. Based on responses on that NANOG
thread 
and on previous threads on nanog & other mailing lists and my personal 
experiences and talking to my consulting clients, all that is mentioned 
is a problem with ARIN to various degree and my dealing with ARIN has 
shown it to be extremely resistant to any change or anybody who actually

tries to propose something to fix one or more of these problems.

Part of this is that people do not see ARIN staff to do what is right, 
do it quickly, do it with resonable amount of documentation, etc. etc. 
When some say "education" is they key, perhaps it is, but the target 
maybe wrong, its not ARIN that needs to educate users but the other way 
around and any attempts to do it have generally failed and led to lower 
then expected participation of ARIN memebers in its activities.

P.S.  Just to add to everything, I'v been trying to transfer (change
company
name) for my ip blocks for 3 years now. Tried hardest last year when it 
seemed like ARIN was actually interested in cleaning up its database.
Same
old wall of we'll get back to you - and that is after I actually sent 
entire package of documentation by fedex. Oh well, at least I tried...

On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Sweeting, John wrote:

> First off I totally disagree with the percentages; they are made up
numbers
> by the author to make his case. Second, the percentage that understand
ARIN
> policies do so because it is thier job to do so and so they take the
time to
> read, learn and understand. It is much easier to say.....ARIN doesn't
know
> what it is doing and that is why I cannot get my request
approved.....then
> it is to take the time to understand the requirements and meet them.
This is
> my personal opinion only.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael.Dillon at radianz.com [mailto:Michael.Dillon at radianz.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 10:44 AM
> To: ppml at arin.net
> Subject: [ppml] Re: Independent space from ARIN
> 
> 
> This NANOG thread is bringing up some stuff that we really do need to
deal 
> with...
> 
> On Sun, Apr 13, 2003 at 08:58:09PM -0400, Jeff McAdams wrote:
> > 
> > Either ARIN's policies are screwed up beyond even what I thought to
> > begin with, or their communications with customers/ISPs/whatever is
> > absolutely pitiful.  Most likely, both.
> 
> >From what I've seen, 1% of the ARIN using population knows how ARIN
works 
> and how to get what they want, and 99% of the ARIN using population
lives 
> in either a) fear of dealing with ARIN for things that they
technically 
> qualify for, and/or b) utter loathing and hatred from past
experiences.
> 
> Unfortunately, the people who are capable of changing things are the
ones
> who fall into the 1% category, hence they never see the problem or
need. 
> The "public policy" forums like ARIN-PPML don't help matters either,
as
> any form of common sense seems to be drowned out amongst the net kooks
and
> other wackjobs.
> 
> Meanwhile, the 99% category sits around wondering about things like:
> 
> * Why does the ARIN email system takes an hour just to generate an
>   auto-acknowledgment?
> 
> * Why does it take days, and sometimes many days, to process a form
and at
>   the very least get a simple YAY or NAY on the syntax so you can
continue
>   submitting without finding out 99 forms later that your first form
had a
>   typo and invalidated all the rest.
> 
> * Why does it seem like no human touches a form until after 4PM
Eastern?
> 
> * Why does the theoretically automated form processing for things like

>   SWIPs still take over an hour to get a YAY or NAY email through.
> 
> * Why does it take a week to process a payment?
> 
> * Why have I NEVER been able to submit an ARIN request without
receiving
>   a response asking for information I included in the original
request.
> 
> * Why do we have to submit to the equivalent of an IP anal probe, and 
>   cough up extremely detailed documentation on network architectures
and
>   the use of every IP address.
> 
> * Why any of this "police state" is necessary given that the shortage
of
>   IPv4 addresses seems to be artifically created. There are still tons
of
>   IP addresses that are either unallocated, unreasonably allocated
(hey
>   Merit, lets see your documentation on 35.0.0.0/8 :P), or long dead
and
>   never reclaimed. Only 32% of the available IPv4 space is being 
>   announced, where is the shortage?
> 
> * Why do we have to pay very large sums of money ($2500+ per year at a

>   minimum) for this wonderful IP policing service. Where in the heck
does
>   all that money go?
> 
> * Why are we expected to continue the status quo of paying thousands
of
>   dollars for addresses in IPv6? Without the threat of an artifical 
>   shortage to "manage", what possible reason is there to justify
ARIN's
>   existance or fees? Why do we all get the feeling IPv6 isn't an end
to
>   the expenses, but rather a vast new market of registration and
renewal
>   fees?
> 
> * http://www.arin.net/library/corp_docs/budget.html - Where does the
$1M
>   in "fringe benefits" go? Where does the extra $1.5M in revenue go?
Why
>   does ARIN need to spend so much in travel, etc?
> 
> * Why does ARIN have no problem assigning large blocks of unallocated 
>   space (usually 2x or more) around a new "customer" to accomodate for
>   future growth, but have policies preventing ISPs from doing the same
>   (aka 80% utilization for more space).
> 
> * Etc etc etc, not counting the problems that have already been
mentioned.
> 
> Yes, if you take the time to try and figure out what goes on inside
the
> minds of ARIN, you'll find that some of the people actually do try to
be
> useful human beings. But most of us don't have the time or desire to
do
> that, we just want a system that works. I don't think the current
system 
> meets anyone's standard for useful, efficient, or cost effective.