[ppml] ARIN IP conservation and FREE IP Addresses

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Sat, Oct 06, 2007 at 10:11:23AM -0400, William Herrin wrote:
> The price structure is entirely inappropriate for a rapidly
> diminishing asset like IPv4 free pool. Where conservation is desired,
> large allocations per year should made to cost more per address than
> small ones.

Leaving aside the issue of is it good or not, I'm not sure ARIN as
a non-profit is in a position to implement a "sin tax" on IP addresses
to promote conservation.  Several people already have stated they
feel ARIN has too much of a surplus; if we implemented a fair sin
tax of say $10 per IP per year, where would all that money go and
what would it be used to do?

> That having been said, this discussion is moot. The xlarge entities
> have the votes to keep the favorable fee structure.

I believe you're wrong on two levels.

First, John has already answered that fees are set by the board,
not by any member votes.  If you wish to read about the board
members, their bios are at http://www.arin.net/about_us/bot.html.
Not a single one works for a "megacorp".  If you were right about
the megacorps they would have already stacked the board with puppets.

Second, you retorted in a message that the megacorps would simply
respond with policy proposals to fix the situation.  As an AC member
I can tell you that the AC passes policy on based on community
consensus, and the board serves as a double check that we did just
that.  While there is no hard and fast rule for consensus, I can
say that in most of the cases it requires the majority of the
community to support the notation.

Note, policy is NOT ARIN members, but the community, e.g. anyone
who wants to show up and express an opinion.

The 5, or 10, or 20 "megacorps" are quickly overruled by the hundreds
if not thousands of people who represent small companies who take
an opposite view.

So for policy matters, everyone (including the general public) gets
one "vote" if you want to think of that that way.  We don't vote,
the AC judges consensus; but close enough for the purposes of this
message.  For Board elections, all ARIN members get two votes each.
You alone as a member can completely counteract Verizon's two votes.
It's very hard for me to see how megacorps have any advantage.
Consolidation is not helping, where AT&T, Pacbell, SBC, and Bell
South used to have a total of 8 votes in elections they now have
2.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
Read TMBG List - tmbg-list-request at tmbg.org, www.tmbg.org
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