Let us all bend over, apply the Vaseline...

[Bob Atkins]

I can't believe what I've read....

$3M/year to maintain an IP address registery???

$2500/year for a /19 block of IP space ???

Please, please, tell me where you all get your drugs... I want some!!

This is an incredble example of monopolistic management. How could
this come to pass? And why are we letting it happen? Probably because
*we* have no choice!

All I can say is that most of what I have read regarding routability
issues and the 'overhead' that would be required to ensure routability
of ARIN assigned address space is at best a joke and at worst a
complete farce that is the result of utter denial.

What we are talking about is maintenance of a simple database. And
the maintenance as it turns out will be performed predominately by
the ISPs themselves. The registry doesn't even have to operate any
significant number of systems but even for argument's sake suppose
they need to run say 10 servers, a T1 to the 'net. Facilities, a staff
of 5-8 etc. At *most* the annual budget would be $500,000 and that
would be allowing for some pretty generous salaries.

No doubt with ARIN's $3M budget there will be some very well
compensated individuals. Non-profit doesn't mean that individuals
working for the organiztion have to make reasonable salaries.

I would be glad to bid on providing the services that ARIN will and we
would provide them for a *fraction* of what is being proposed. We will
be efficient and properly staffed with the necessary expertise. But of
course the IP registery didn't come up for public bid, did it?

Please advise if a class action lawsuit has been filed against this
obvious monopoly, we would be glad to join and to contribute to
whatever effort would ensure that such a monopoly could not come into
being and that the opportunity to bid on providing such a service would
be established.  Network Solutions already has the monopoly on control
of the top level domain registeries, we should not permit this to
happen for the IP registery. Should such a lawsuit be filed it may also
be worthwhile to challenge the Network Solutions domain registery
monopoly in the process.

I also doubt that any of the discussion that occurs in this list or
in any other forum will change the direction that is being taken.
Clearly if a lawsuit hasn't been filed to block ARIN then one should.
Unfortunately, I'm fairly sure that decisions will be made by certain
individuals or organizations and that the only way to modify their
action is by legal intervention. Anything else is just noise....

---
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Bob Atkins, President			| bob at digilink.net
Digilink Network Services		| http://www.DigiLink.Net/
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The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the
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one has ever been.
                -- Alan Ashley-Pitt