All this talk of ARIN's power and rights versus others is rather despairing. I
will now explain what we, a 'non-connectivity' ISP, are providing as useful
service.
Many of customers value anonymity/pseudonymity. We can provide these things.
Sure, there is a great potential for abuse, but we take steps to prevent this,
such as careful control over port 25.
Our customers can appear on the net from one of several IPv4 addresses in
various places, which can be used for testing location-based services. Yes, this
could be abused.
We can aggregate broadband connections at our router, or provide instant
switchover. This is useful for various people and organizations which have to
use low-grade broadband (consumer quality, or often consumer quality relabeled
'business' and sold at a higher price).
We find a way for people to use their legacy space. A few hobbyist types with
their legacy Class Cs are customers.
We've managed to get around some censorship blocks. Private http proxies to
facebook/youtube and other less-known sites have an IP in some of our space.
This is not saying these named organizations are our customers (nor am I saying
they are not).
We remain quiet at the moment because we do not have the infrastructure in place
to handle any more traffic than the people who have found out about us by
word-of-mouth. Maintaining a low profile also allows us to escape being added to
lists of those censors of one type or another. It has allowed us to avoid
spammers, thieves and crackers as customers
I hope that many of you will see our use of IP space as a legitimate one. Like
many of the rest of you, we provide services which may be valuable to
spammers/crackers, but this doesn't mean we're in bed with them. If ARIN/RIPE
etc ever decide to edit their databases in a way that interferes with our
valuable services, I hope that some of you will raise an alarm in our defense.