Why does Sprint have address filters again?

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1

It requires $100 worth of someone's time to make two phone calls and/or read
two signed service agreements?

Perhaps if ARIN is paying their people $100/hour, yes.

(This is a CLERK's job)

Really? You're going to educate clerks about IP transit?
How interesting.

I disagree strongly on the "resistor" argument, at least for the initial
assignment. Bottom line - if you're announcing networks, you need an ASN.
If you're not, you don't. Demonstrate that someone is going to allow you
to announce networks, and you get one.

If you want a SECOND one for administrative convenience or whatever, now for
THAT I can see charging a significant fee. Why? Because its not *necessary*
for you to have a second one. You might WANT a second ASN, you might in
fact want several of them for policy routing reasons, but that's not the
same thing as a NEED for a second (or subsequent) ASN.

So, what's the criteria? Make a proposal. I don't have a strong problem
with charging more for 2nd and subsequent ASNs, but I also think charging
something for the reg service is reasonable.

Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin

Avi

2

> It requires $100 worth of someone's time to make two phone calls and/or read
> two signed service agreements?
>
> Perhaps if ARIN is paying their people $100/hour, yes.
>
> (This is a CLERK's job)

Really? You're going to educate clerks about IP transit?
How interesting.

You need to be educated to ask if someone is going to be announcing routes
and note the answer?

This is a "matrix" problem Avi. If A + B then YES.

> I disagree strongly on the "resistor" argument, at least for the initial
> assignment. Bottom line - if you're announcing networks, you need an ASN.
> If you're not, you don't. Demonstrate that someone is going to allow you
> to announce networks, and you get one.
>
> If you want a SECOND one for administrative convenience or whatever, now for
> THAT I can see charging a significant fee. Why? Because its not *necessary*
> for you to have a second one. You might WANT a second ASN, you might in
> fact want several of them for policy routing reasons, but that's not the
> same thing as a NEED for a second (or subsequent) ASN.

So, what's the criteria? Make a proposal. I don't have a strong problem
with charging more for 2nd and subsequent ASNs, but I also think charging
something for the reg service is reasonable.

> Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin

Avi

Charging reasonable costs (ie: the kind of fee that the Driver License
bureau charges, ergo, $10 or so) for the first ASN is reasonable.

Charging a lot more (say, $1,000) for the second and subsequent ASNs (or
even an increasing fee, say $1k per ASN, so the second is $1k, the third
$2k, etc) is also reasonable. Why? Because there are ways to skin the cat
that don't require this, and if you're going to use more than a trivial
amount of a limited resource then a "resistor" is reasonable on that use.

3

Charging reasonable costs (ie: the kind of fee that the Driver License
bureau charges, ergo, $10 or so) for the first ASN is reasonable.

The drivers license world defrays their fixed overhead costs
across millions of drivers a year who get renewals done - there
are not that many ASNs and other things done a day. Again, as
a businessman Karl, you should understand that already.

Charging a lot more (say, $1,000) for the second and subsequent ASNs (or
even an increasing fee, say $1k per ASN, so the second is $1k, the third
$2k, etc) is also reasonable. Why? Because there are ways to skin the cat
that don't require this, and if you're going to use more than a trivial
amount of a limited resource then a "resistor" is reasonable on that use.

You are either charging a price to defray costs, or you are
changing a price to encourage/discourage behaviour. In the
two cases, the answers to "what is the correct price" are
radically different, so we need to decide what the goal is
before determining if the current price is good or bad.

Doug

4

Charging reasonable costs (ie: the kind of fee that the Driver License
bureau charges, ergo, $10 or so) for the first ASN is reasonable.

And the DMV breaks even on that, right?

Jordyn

5

I don't care if its $50; even that's reasonable.

$500 is punitive.

Now if you want to be "restrictive" on *multiple* ASNs, that makes some
sense, since the quantity has to fit in 16 bits (at least it does today).

6

This really gets to the crux of the matter. How much does it cost for ARIN
to do the work that it needs to do? How should we divide the costs up
amongst the various fees? How much extra should be charged over costs to
allow for growth, and for unforseen future costs?

It has always been public knowledge that ARIN would review its costs after
the first year and reduce its fees if they prove to be to high. Only half
a year has passed so far. While it can be lots of fun to speculate on the
fee structure using real dollar amounts I think we have to be careful to
remember that in the absence of actual lower costs, a reduction in any one
fee has to be accompanied by an INCREASE in some other fee. And even if
the fee structure itself is left unchanged, all fees will be decreased if
there is a real difference between estimated and actual costs.

Personally, I'd rather keep the focus of these discussions away from money
and specific dollar figures because it tends to obscure the real goals of
ARIN which are to do a darn good job of allocating/registering the unique
numbers that are absolutely critical to the Internet's operational
infrastructure. IMHO, quality of ARIN's services should come first. If we
can increase quality and simultaneously decrease costs, then that is great
but you can't provide top quality service without top quality employees.

7

> Charging reasonable costs (ie: the kind of fee that the Driver License
> bureau charges, ergo, $10 or so) for the first ASN is reasonable.

The drivers license world defrays their fixed overhead costs
across millions of drivers a year who get renewals done - there
are not that many ASNs and other things done a day. Again, as
a businessman Karl, you should understand that already.

The Federal Government has set up a corporation for "E-Rate" connections.
These are the "libraries and schools" program you keep hearing about.

To bid on these, you must have a SPIN, or service provider ID number.

To get one of THOSE, you make one call to an 800 number, they assign the
number, send you a packet of info, you fill it out, and send it back.

That's it.

I know this, because MCSNet has one of these things since we've had a bunch
of schools and libraries call us requesting Erate quotes over the last
couple of months.

Total cost to the ISP to get a SPIN: $0.00

Now, let's look at the parallels:

1. Both are required to "do business" in a given sector (ie: announce
  routes, sell to the Erate customer base)

2. Both are simple *technical* providers (assignment of a number, with
  the important being that it is unique in both cases).

3. One is free to the ISP.

4. The other costs $500.00

You are either charging a price to defray costs, or you are
changing a price to encourage/discourage behaviour. In the
two cases, the answers to "what is the correct price" are
radically different, so we need to decide what the goal is
before determining if the current price is good or bad.

Doug

What is going on here? ASNs didn't used to cost money until ARIN got its
claws into them.

8

While I agree with both sides of the ARIN argument, I have been silent for
a while, but I have to speak now.

ARIN, the 'American Registry for Internet Numbers', is something that I
have come to fear. It has put an interesting spin on my business.

As a preface to this email, I would like to say that I don't want to sound
like the typical kvetcher (for the non-jews, it's yiddish for 'whiner')
who just likes to complain about things, because they can. I think that we
are beyond that. Anyway... A little history.

nac.net (Net Access Corporation, nothing to do with Avi) was founded in
late 1995. Fortunately, we were multi-homing early, and applies for a
block and got it (after some arguing, which was absolutley justified on
Internic's part) -- 207.99/18. As we filled and used that block, we
requested -- and got with more ease -- 207.99.64/18 (to make for a whole
/17). Time went on, and we filled that one, and requested another /16 (our
1 year estimate), and were turned down, but approved for a /18 --
209.123/18. This all took place before ARIN was actively taking
registrations.

So, recently, we began to get low on space -- we were at about 80 to 90%
utilization. We began the procedure of making sure all SWIPs were up to
date, and proceed to ask for another chunk. This was two months ago, and
to this day, the issue is still unresolved.

My issues are simple. Early on, before I actually experienced what ARIN
could do for me, I was in support of it; RIPE is wildly successful, and
folks in Europe that I talk to are generally very supportive of RIPE or
APNIC, etc, and dealing with them is not a 'chore'. An ISP who is
approaching ARIN for space, especially one who has already rec'd space
over the last 2 years, should be treated with respect. I know this sounds
like a gripe, but the treatment we have gotten from ARIN alone has made
our experiences with ARIN very negative. The attitude of "Why are you
bothering me for address space" permeated the entire conversation. Not
only that, we have moved from IP Address allocation being a 'free' 'in the
extent that you didn't pay the Internic for address space) to a 'fee'
service, and the customer service has taken a severe dive. Not to mention
that fact that response time is horrid; why does it take 48 hours for
responses from ARIN staff?

My next gripe is the draconian (sp?) measures ARIN takes to make sure that
you are as insulted as possible. My attitude is that we've maintained good
SWIPping policies internal at NAC, and that customers who are assigned
space from us have gotten either just what they need, or a small amount of
growth made upon their representations of needs withing a 6 month period.
We practice policies as much as possible to save address space (like
dynamic addressing at dialup nodes, unnumbering interfaces when possible,
etc.). We reclaim address space as quickly as possible and reuse it when
needed. But, to ARIN, it is though you are 'guilty until proven innocent'.
There is a great deal of time wasted in dealing with ARIN over *very*
simple matters.

And, the best part about this is that we get to pay now for the lack of
customer service, and we have no choice but to use ARIN.

Next, (as if you weren't expecting to hear this) is the pricing. The fee
structure seems as though it is based upon, "If you have a /14, then you
must be able to afford $20k per year." This is crazy! This is not a
representation of what it takes time wise to review an application! I
highly doubt that ARIN goes over every IP allocation that Sprint or MCI
requests. And, if an ISP becomes stagnant in their requests, then the
entire scheme falls to pieces; let me explain. Let's assume for a moment
that an ISP gets enough customers over time to get a /16. They are billed
$5,000 per year. But, if they become stagnant, and don't require any
future allocations, there is a $5k yearly fee that goes where? For
IN-ADDR delegations? (not to mention that the name servers that do IN-ADDR
are generally on networks that donate the bandwidth, so what really is the
cost to ARIN for IN-ADDR?) I think that the argument overall is that this
fee is collected so that ARIN can afford to pay thier employees to look
over IP requests; but, what if there are no further requests? Why would
that organization have to pay the same as another which is actually
creating a load on ARIN?

I do believe that ARIN's prices are *way too high* and unjustified, but
without interesting numbers to swallow, it would be impossible to assume.
How does one get a report of what ARIN has registered, what they have
collected? What about a balance sheet?

Mu opinion is that ARIN's policies were shoe-horned into place, almost as
if in hopes that no one was watching.

Comments are welcome.

> The drivers license world defrays their fixed overhead costs
> across millions of drivers a year who get renewals done - there
> are not that many ASNs and other things done a day. Again, as
> a businessman Karl, you should understand that already.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
                  Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
       I route, therefore I am.
       Alex Rubenstein, alex@nac.net, KC2BUO, ISP/C Charter Member
               Father of the Network and Head Bottle-Washer
     Net Access Corporation, 9 Mt. Pleasant Tpk., Denville, NJ 07834
Don't choose a spineless ISP! We have more backbone! http://www.nac.net
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

9

Now, let's look at the parallels:

1. Both are required to "do business" in a given sector (ie: announce
  routes, sell to the Erate customer base)

2. Both are simple *technical* providers (assignment of a number, with
  the important being that it is unique in both cases).

3. One is free to the ISP.

4. The other costs $500.00

5. One is financed by the government out of your taxes and is merely an
accounting formality much like a customer ID number. The other is funded
by a corporation that has no government funding and must support itself
not unlike most businesses and the number is a critical infrastructure
identifier something like an NPA-NXX.

What is going on here? ASNs didn't used to cost money until ARIN got its
claws into them.

ASNs have always cost money to issue. It's just that in the past it was
funded out of taxes funnelled through the NSF to a subcontractor and
hidden somewhere in NSI's budget. Those days are gone, thank God.

10

Karl Denninger wrote:

The Federal Government has set up a corporation for "E-Rate" connections.
These are the "libraries and schools" program you keep hearing about.

To bid on these, you must have a SPIN, or service provider ID number.

[...]

Total cost to the ISP to get a SPIN: $0.00

[...]

What is going on here? ASNs didn't used to cost money until ARIN got its
claws into them.

The cost of administering SPINs is paid for by the U.S. government (and
therefore by the U.S. taxpayers), just like the U.S. government used to pay
for the administration of ASNs, IP address allocations, and domain names. What
has changed is that the U.S. government no longer pays for the administration
of ASNs. It still costs money to do the administration so the money has to
come from somewhere.

In fact, knowing the way the U.S. government works, it probably costs the
taxpayers more than $500 to allocate a SPIN.

Jeff