IPv4 address exchange

Tue Apr 19 20:46:39 UTC 2011

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Benson Schliesser
<bensons at queuefull.net> wrote:
> Meanwhile, under the current system, ARIN has managed to accumulate a >$25M cash reserve despite an increasing budget. (see https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/reports/ARIN_XXVII/PDF/Wednesday/andersen_treasurer.pdf)

If you want ARIN to reduce its fees, you can propose that.  The
fiduciaries at ARIN may say, "you're right, we do have more money than
we need or foresee to need to operate," and recommend that fees be
reduced.  They may provide justification for this "war chest," such as
the possibility of legal battles over address transfers.  Who knows?

Is your problem that ARIN spends its money poorly?  I believe it does
in some ways, but the community generally does not care enough to try
to improve this.  I questioned ARIN's travel budget a few years ago
and was essentially flamed for doing so.

You seem to think the difference between ARIN's expenditures and
revenues is too large, resulting in a large cash reserve.  Okay, if
that's important to you, there is a forum for that discussion.  I
don't think anything will be done about it through a discussion on
NANOG, but you can certainly bring it up on the various ARIN mailing
lists, or ask ARIN board/staff to share their thoughts with you.

I really don't think the cost of ARIN fees for IP address and ASN
allocations are all that important to ARIN members.  In my position as
a senior technical resource for numerous ARIN members, I am much more
interested in ARIN providing more services to members, or improving
upon existing ones (IRR), than I am in any reduction of fees.  Again,
my position is reflected clearly in my public mailing list posts on
this subject.

Note that one of the things I think ARIN should improve upon, which
ARIN has committed to improve, is its IRR database.  There are already
alternatives available, I'm glad ARIN has decided to increase the
usefulness and quality of its IRR database.  If they don't, you can
still choose to use a third-party database.

I don't share your view that a fragmented WHOIS/DNS ecosystem would be
all that beneficial to stakeholders.  In the absence of ARIN members
flocking to PPML to complain about ARIN's travel budget or its
increasing cash reserve, I don't think ARIN members are particularly
concerned about reducing ARIN's fees.

-- 
Jeff S Wheeler <jsw at inconcepts.biz>
Sr Network Operator  /  Innovative Network Concepts