Search Engines/IP restrictions/policy changes

[Brandon Ross]

On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Ted Pavlic wrote:

> Webhosting companies are so upset about this because it makes no sense to
> hit us first -- and it just adds insult to injury to single us out.

Webhosting companies were NOT hit first.  Several years ago a policy
requiring dialup connections to use dynamic IP addresses was implemented.
I was working for a fairly large dialup company at the time and we had
been using static addresses for customers.  Yes, it was a painful
conversion, not even so much because of the technology, but in educating
users how to configure or re-configure their software.  We took a lot of
tech support calls when we made the conversion.  We had to do a network
wide software upgrade of our dial platforms to support it, but it got
done, and I'm happy it was.

Frankly, this thread just sounds like a bunch of excuses for why you don't
feel like doing the work to convert over.  The policy clearly states that
exceptions are available.  The policy says _nothing_ about ftp, so
requesting addresses for ftp will still be allowed.  ARIN has not stated
what the criteria of the exceptions are, but if you look at their track
record, you fill find that they have been reasonably fair when it comes to
implementing new policy, I see no reason they should deviate from that
behavior now. 

The only area that I see that is consuming addresses at an alarming rate
without a good reason that should get attention first is cable modems. 
There still seems to be a perception that cable modem users need static
addressing for some reason that escapes me.  I have to say that I would
much rather see ARIN require dynamic addressing (whether that's
dynamically assigned through a PPP or DHCP like mechanism, or a NAT
solution doesn't matter to me) than pursue the web hosting consumption. 

Brandon Ross                                                 404-522-5400
EVP Engineering, NetRail                           http://www.netrail.net
AIM:  BrandonNR                                             ICQ:  2269442
Read RFC 2644!