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

[Michael Dillon]

On Wed, 30 Apr 1997, Bob Atkins wrote:

> A monopoly,
> whether non-profit or for-profit has *absolutely* no incentive to lower
> prices *or* reduce their backend costs. 

I quite agree with this statement.

> They have a captive market and no other authority to hold them
> accountable. 

Fortunately ARIN is not a monopoly and will have several authorities to
hold them accountable. Since ARIN is a 501(c)6 organization, the law holds
them accountable to the members and to the IRS regulations for
non-profits. The members will hold ARIN accountable. Since ARIN receives
its address blocks from IANA for allocation to North American users, IANA
will hold ARIN accountable. Since ARIN is applying the policies of RFC2050
set forth by the Internet community and the IETF, both of these groups
will hold them accountable. And, in fact, since ARIN is directed by a
board of *TRUSTEES*, they too will hold the organization accountable.
Not to mention the press and assorted onlookers.

I'm glad you brought up this point because until you forced me to think it
through I hadn't realized that there were so many layers of accountability
that ARIN's activities would be subject to.

> > > The idea of paying such a high recurring cost for IP space is absurd
> > > and only goes to justify a bloated $3M annual budget.
> > 
> > The companies who will be paying these fees will have annual budgets that
> > are larger than ARIN's. They can afford it.
> 
> You just made the point that I am trying to make. ARIN will serve to
> squash smaller ISPs.

I'm afraid you have misunderstood my statements above. I am trying to
point out that ARIN will have *NO* effect, positive or negative, on
smaller ISPs. The smaller ISPs will continue to get their address
allocations from their upstream providers just as they have done for the
past couple of years. It is only the larger ISPs that will have any need
to ask ARIN directly for an address allocation and those ISPs are clearly
able to pay the small fees with no hardship at all.

If I thought that ARIN would have any negative impact on small ISPs I can
assure you that I would be utterly opposed to their actions because in the
next couple of weeks I expect to begin working for a company that will
be selling services to small ISPs and that will be doing everything
possible to support and assist those small ISPs to be successful and
profitable.

> > So why don't you put in a bid for it then. Please submit full details of
> > capital and other expenses for the first year of operation in a form
> > that can be verified by the members of this list. 
> 
> I may very well do this however, since it isn't likely receive any serious
> consideration I can't say it will be on the top of my priority list.

I can assure you that if you do post a detailled budget to this list, it
will receive some serious attention from me and I will urge others to gove
it serious attention as well. This doesn't mean I will be praising you
from the rooftops, but it does mean that I will be asking some hard
questions about your numbers to ensure that they really are solid. I think
it is very important that the ARIN budget be a solid one and that all
items on the budget be fully justified. Of course, it's pretty hard to do
this without some input from other people and that's why I suggest you
work up a reasonable first draft and then we can all work together on the
list to improve it.


Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com

The bottom line is track record.  Not track tearing.  Not track derailing.
But pounding the damn dirt around the track with the rest of us worms.
       -- Randy Bush