What triggered ARIN ?

[Jim Fleming]

What triggered ARIN ?

People keep making statements that something has changed at the
InterNIC and funding is no longer provided to cover the IP allocation
and registration actvities. The ISP/C web site seems to confirm this
viewpoint...<http://www.ispc.org/press/19970207.html:>

	"In the past, IP registry operations in North and South
	America have been funded by the US government via the
	National Science Foundation (NSF). Now that the NSF
	no longer funds this critical part of the Internet's infrastructure..."

What triggered these changes ?

People seem to always make the assumption that the InterNIC
and Network Solutions, Inc. are one and the same. This is clearly
not the case because AT&T still is an integral part of the InterNIC.

U.S. Government
	NSF
		InterNIC
			IS, RS - Network Solutions, Inc.
			DS - AT&T

Also, people seem to make the assumption that domain registrations
now fund the ENTIRE InterNIC and NSF provides no funding. This is
clearly not the case because the NSF recently authorized to pay some
of NSI's legal fees ($74,617) and the NSF is funding up to $253,300 in
domain registrations for schools and government organizations.
	<http://rs.internic.net/nsf/agreement/amendment5.html>

Very little is said about the funding of AT&T and how the IS, DS,
and RS functions cross-subsidize each other. Because of the
massive resources of AT&T, it is possible that many of the DS funding
issues are lost in the noise. The emphasis always seems to be
placed on the RS functions, which are handled by NSI.

The viewpoint that seems to be promoted is that money flows
into NSI and 30% is placed in an NSF fund to be used to build
additional Internet Infrastructure. The assumption is that the
other 70% is used by NSI without NSF involvement.

It is hard to determine whether this view is fact or semantics.
According to the actual agreement [1], the money is supposed
to be placed into an interest bearing account and dispersed
according to an order of priorities. One would assume that
one of those priorities would be funding for the IP allocation
and registration activities. If instead, 70% of the funds stop
at NSI with 30% passed on to NSF, then the priorities of
payments can not be easily honored.

As can be seen[2], an additional $2.5 million was raised in January.
To date, none of this money has been spent to add any
additional Internet Infrastructure. In many respects, NOT
spending this money can have a long term negative impact
on the Internet because additional NICs are not being funded
and the monopoly situation enjoyed by NSI improves each
month the funds sit idle.

 $15,284,934 - Current Balance
-$12,685,450 - Previous Balance
------------------
  $2,599,484 - Additional Funds, January 1997

According to <http://rs.internic.net/announcements/iif-update.html>

	"[Network Solutions] will develop and implement mechanisms
	to insure the involvement of the Internet communities in
	determining and overseeing disbursements from this account." 

It is unclear at this point whether any such mechanisms have been
developed and whether it would be in Network Solutions best interest
to develop such mechanisms. If ARIN is considered to be one
of these "mechanisms" funded out of the Intellectual Infrastructure
Fund then NSI is really not funding ARIN, instead the ISPs are
doing the funding via their continued channeling of domain registrations
to the InterNIC.

Can the people promoting ARIN including the ISP/C clarify
some of the following questions ?

1. What triggered the sudden need for ARIN ?
2. Has internal funding been removed or not ?
3. Is ARIN going to be funded from the Intellectual Intrastructure Fund ?

Thanks,

Jim Fleming


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[1] @@@@ http://rs.internic.net/nsf/agreement/agreement.html

"ARTICLE 15. PROJECT INCOME FROM REGISTRATION FEES 

A. If, and to the extent that Awardee is authorized and/or directed to
charge and collect user fees for the Registration Services provided
hereunder, any user fees so collected shall be placed in an interest
bearing account, and shall be used to defray the Awardee's and the
Foundation's Project expenses in the following descending order of priority: 

1. Project expenses incurred by Awardee as a result of the imposition of such fees. 

2. Project expenses of the Awardee charged to the Foundation under
this award. (Program Plans and future year funding requests should reflect
any such Income. 

3. Project expenses of Awardee's Collaborators charged to the Foundation
under their respective Awards. (Program Plans and future year funding
requests should reflect any such inform and project fund transfers. 

4. The provisions of this Article shall apply only to any Project Income
which is generated from the imposition of user based fees on registration
services. Article 19, Project Income, of the General Conditions shall
apply to project related revenue from any other source [Amend 01]."

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[2] @@@@ http://rs.internic.net/announcements/iif-update.html

Intellectual Infrastructure Funds

...through October 31, 1996, $8,542,200.00 has been deposited into the account.

...through November 30, 1996, $9,911,000.00 has been deposited into the account.

...through December 31, 1996: $12,685,450.00 has been desposited into the account.

...through January 31, 1997: $15,284,934.00 has been desposited into the account.

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--
Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation

e-mail:
JimFleming at unety.net
JimFleming at unety.s0.g0 (EDNS/IPv8)