[arin-ppml] New Entrants shut out? (Was: ARIN-2011-5: ... - Last Call

[George Herbert]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:22 AM, Jeffrey Lyon
<jeffrey.lyon at blacklotus.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 1:57 AM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>
>>> This is true, unless we embrace a free market.
>>>
>>
>> How is a free market with needs-based justification any different from a free
>> market without it in this respect?
>>
>> Owen
>>
>>
>
> Owen,
>
> Two concerns come to mind. It's 3AM here so i'm sure i'll think of more later:
>
> - Needs based justification requires a substantial amount of oversight
> on our part, it takes a lot of time (and therefore $) to keep track of
> justification and maintain it in a format that is acceptable to ARIN.
> Then when we submit a request it is scrutinized, which costs more T+$.
>
> - Right now my organization is holding 2 x /21. We waited over 4 years
> to submit our request for the second /21 in order to avoid the
> aforementioned, and in an attempt to take care of the resources we had
> been given. We finally caved in and took the second /21 just a few
> weeks shy of the IANA depletion and now recognize that future
> allocations are going to become near impossible to find. IPv6 adoption
> is underway, but unfortunately support and adoption is slow to catch
> on.
>
> This leaves us rationing space to customers in what amounts to a
> digital breadline, where customers have to beg for space and we have
> to debate with them about why they're now paying $10 per month, per IP
> (it's to discourage people from attempting to justify large
> assignments and to encourage larger customers to go direct to ARIN)
> where other companies who managed to "justify" /17 and shorter are
> freely handing out space. As a practical matter, we would be willing
> to pay substantially for allocations that we project will be needed in
> the future. Unfortunately, need based justification leaves us pulling
> coupons out of our proverbial ration book instead of simply bidding
> for the space that we're going to need to sustain our business. Keep
> in mind that my "need" might look like a "want" to ARIN, but that's
> all in the eye of the beholder.
>
> As Americans, when we want or need something and we have the means to
> obtain it, we go out and buy it. The market determines the price while
> supply and demand principles ensure that those who wish to make a
> purchase are able to do so without waiting in line or being told
> they're going to have to buy something different.

All needs-based allocation is supposed to fundamentally mean is "We
want everyone to have about equal access to these resources", in the
"Everyone should get enough to run out at about the same time" sense.

Abandoning needs-based allocation allows us to say "Some people are
more equal than others, and get to pay more to run out later".  It
also possibly enables us to say "Some people are allowed to buy up
addresses now and resell them for more later".

If your organization is going to run out *before* everyone else, you
were doing something wrong.  That something wrong may be "I don't want
to put any effort in to tracking and explaining my usage".  Or it may
be "I don't understand or agree with this process."

I am highly sympathetic to people who want to open the floor to
forthright discussion of the underlying policy and community usage
issues associated with abandoning needs-based allocation.  I am
somewhat less sympathetic to people who stayed outside the existing
allocations for the latter two reasons.

That we didn't already have good enough discussion on the first two
issues is our own faults as a community.  The latter two are the users
fault.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com