ARIN is not/is too/is not/is too... blah.

Sat Mar 29 19:09:42 UTC 1997

On Sat, 29 Mar 1997, Matthew Pearson wrote:

> >   I'am I the only one that finds that the fact that the prices actually
> >*decrease* the larger the address blocks is disturbing? 

> I feel that it is disturbing as well. Since IP addresses are supposed to
> come from a non-profit organization all prices should be equal. Why should
> US Sprint get a deal (not to single them out.. take any HUGE network
> provider) on addresses and then have ARIN stick it to smaller NSPs such as
> our own.
> 
> It makes no sense...

That's because you are misunderstanding what is happening. ARIN is not
selling IP addresses, If you want the costs to be spread evenly among all
ISP's then you can join ARIN and have a say in doing this but please be
aware that this will likely result in Sprint paying LESS and you paying
MORE. The fact is that in order to be independent of government, ARIN has
to pay its own way. This means that the members of ARIN and the users of
ARIN's services must divide the costs between them somehow. If you have a
better plan that takes into consideration ALL costs then please propose it
on the ARIN list. In fact, since ARIN is a member-run non-profit
organization, it is a certainty that if real costs go down, then fees will
also go down. This is what happened in Europe with RIPE.

> Not to mention you will then create 2nd level IP allocation companies. I
> could pay the bucks, misfile the paperwork and get a /14 or two and then
> resell smaller blocks for less than ARIN's prices to NSPs starving for
> address space.

This will not happen unless you lie to ARIN and forge documents to back up
your lies. If this did happen, not only would your criminal behavior be
made public but I would urge the FBI to lay charges against you. If the
FBI would not do this I would urge ISOC and EFF to file a civil suit
against you. I suspect the FTC would also have some interest if you are
selling IP addresses which you do not own since IP addresses are not
things which you buy, they are also not things which you can sell.

I don't understand why so many people want to push these ideas to reductio
ad absurdum. We all rely on a cooperative network in order to support our
businesses. Without a cooperative network there is no industry and we
would all be out of work. Why can you not see that ARIN is just another
form of cooperation in keeping the network running smoothly so that we can
all get on with business. As the network gets bigger there are more and
more activities that it makes sense to carve out and run autonomously.

Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-250-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com