ARIN IX Members Meeting Minutes - Las Vegas, Nevada - 10 April 2002 [Archived]

Call to Order

Ray Plzak, ARIN President and CEO, called the meeting to order at 9:00 a.m. He made several announcements and reviewed the agenda.

ARIN Department Reports

Registration Services Department

Presentation: PDF

Leslie Nobile, Director of Registration Services, presented an overview of department activities since the last Member’s Meeting.

A request was made that the statistics depicting Registration Services response times be posted on the ARIN website.

In regard to the increased number of transfers, questions were raised concerning AS number reclamation.

Staff was asked to provide summary information characterizing the organizations that have requested bulk WHOIS downloads.

Engineering Department

Presentation: PDF

Ginny Listman, Director of Engineering, presented an overview of department activities since the last Member’s Meeting.

In response to a discussion on the nature of WHOIS queries, the Engineering department stated that they would produce statistics on this.

Member Services Department

Presentation: PDF

Susan Hamlin, Director of Member Services, presented an overview of department activities since the last Member’s Meeting. She also provided a guided tour of the new ARIN website.

The audience was polled to determine their interest in attending an ARIN training session conducted at some time other than an ARIN meeting. Some interested was expressed.

In response to a question, it was reported that non-subscriber membership growth has been relatively flat.

Looking further at membership, Registration Services was asked to provide statistics breaking down the growth of subscriber members by allocation size category.

Business Department

Presentation: PDF

Bob Stratton, Director of Business, presented an overview of department activities since the last Members Meeting.

There was a question raised as to how revenues are recognized. It was pointed out that ARIN revenues are recognized on a cash basis.

Administration Department

Presentation: PDF

Mary K. Lee, Director of Administration, presented an overview of activities since the last Member’s Meeting.

Advisory Council Report

Chairman Alec Peterson began by describing the function of the AC, noted that there had been active participation in recent AC teleconferences, and encouraged attendees in the audience to run for a seat on the AC this fall.

Alec then reported the results of the previous evening’s AC meeting.

• IPv6 policy - Based on the Public Policy meeting input, the AC recommended moving forward on the interim IPv6 policy adopting the language with the exception of the text concerning lease licenses and routability. Also noted was the lack of consensus on subsequent allocations as written in the interim policy.
• Micro-allocation policy - Based on feedback from the Public Policy meetings, the AC recommended language providing for ARIN micro-allocations to critical infrastructure providers with a maximum allocation of /24 in IPv4 and /48 in IPv6. Exchange point allocations must be allocated from specific blocks reserved only for this purpose while other micro-allocations would come from blocks reserved for micro-allocations. Exchange point operators would need to provide specific justification under this policy. This does not exclude exchange points from requesting address space under other policies. This policy will go out for last call on the Public Policy Mailing List (ppml@arin.net).
• Lame delegations - This item was tabled until the next meeting.
• CLEW - After much discussion a task force was created to produce a document outlining a draft mission statement and action list to be presented to the AC by May 5. Volunteering for the task force were Bill Darte, John Sweeting, Dawn Martin and John Brown.
• ICANN reform proposal - Members presented their opinions regarding the proposal and were asked to voice any concerns.

There were no questions.

Board of Trustees Report

Chairman John Curran presented a report on Board actions taken since the last Member’s Meeting. These included:

• ICANN Contract Negotiations

• From the start the need for a contract was identified in order to ensure that the ARIN-ICANN relationship was understandable and didn’t bind ARIN from conducting its business

• A draft contract has been agreed upon by the RIRs and ICANN

• Attendees were encouraged to provide comment on the contract language via the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List (ppml@arin.net) until May 31

• Ratified Policies Recommended by the Advisory Council

• 2001/02 Reassignments to Multi-homed Downstream Customers

• 2001-6 Multiple Discrete Networks - Single Maintainer ID

• 2001-7 Bulk WHOIS data download

• Updated Bylaws

• Changed fiscal year to calendar year

• Defined process of approving draft Board meeting minutes

• Board Committees

• Abolished Audit Committee and created a Finance Committee

• Finance Committee responsibilities include an audit review and investment planning and review

The Board encouraged anyone with issues concerning ARIN activities, other than specific details of allocations, to approach them on an individual basis at any time.

No questions were asked.

Treasurer’s Report

Presentation: PDF

ARIN Treasurer Lee Howard presented the fiscal report.

No questions were asked.

Waiver of Transfer Fees

John Curran introduced the question of whether or not ARIN should waive the $250 transfer fee for the remainder of this year to encourage database cleanup. He suggested that given the current strong financial state of ARIN it might be appropriate to take such action.

General comments:

• This fee is not a deterrent to conducting transfers; it is the paperwork involved that scares people.
• Might be a good idea, but ARIN would need to advertise the waiver and reason for it in order to get the sought after participation.
• Several questions were raised regarding the financial impact of implementing such a policy. ARIN staff reported that 350 transfers were completed in 2001. John Curran commented that ARIN could absorb the cost of every member conducting one transfer. John stated it should not be looked upon as lost revenue.
• A suggestion was made to extend the period from now going forward 12 months. John Curran stated that the Board would like to offer the waiver until the end of the fiscal year in order to encourage people to get their transfers done. If successful the policy could be reviewed and possibly extended.

John called for a show of hands of those who would favor the Board looking into such a policy. (50 yeas, 0 nays, 0 abstentions).

Open Microphone

Leslie Nobile asked the audience if there were any issues not already discussed that they would like to raise. Discussion on three main topics ensued.

• It was asked if ARIN were looking into additional changes to its existing fee structure with a specific recommendation that ARIN flatten its fees. John Curran responded that the Board would continue to move slowly in changing any fees in case the current economic slowdown begins to directly impact ARIN’s revenue outlook. He asked why a flattening of fees was desired and the member response was to encourage new members to join. There were additional comments made that the $2500 for initial allocations was a deterrent to some potential new members. Another member stated that they would like to see the fees reduced for extra large members.

• Subsequent allocation audit

  • Are large ISPs giving away space as a marketing tool because they aren’t being closely scrutinized when they come back for subsequent allocations? In response to many comments the question was raised regarding what type of audit ARIN conducts in the requests for subsequent allocations. Cathy Clements responded that during the review process for requests for subsequent allocations ARIN looks back to make certain the last block has a utilization of at least 80% and ARIN randomly selects 3 customers to ask for more detailed information.
  • How does ARIN know a customer is providing correct information? Discussion then moved to whether or not ARIN policies favors large ISPs and makes it more difficult for small ISPS to get space. It was suggested that ARIN produce statistics on number of requests and number of approvals and rejections by categories to determine if a bias exists.
  • After much input on the two previous points John Curran asked the community to provide ARIN with suggestions on how to verify data. He noted that any change in how ARIN reviews requests would require a policy change that would have to be fair to everyone and applied uniformly across the board. Such a change would require community consensus.
  • A suggestion was made that CLEW should look into ways to educate potential small customers who feel ARIN is too difficult to work with in obtaining initial allocations. CLEW Chairman Bill Darte said he would resurrect the draft ISP Customer Document to determine if it could be helpful.

• CLEW

  • Opinions were solicited from the attendees regarding ARIN work in the area of training versus education. Training was described as tools to help learn how to do business with ARIN, e.g. completing templates. Education was described in two categories, understanding the technical issues as they pertain to ARIN policies and understanding the basics of IP addressing.
  • A show of hands was called for asking where CLEW should direct its priorities. Of those raising hands, education was favored.

Adjournment

With the conclusion of the Open Microphone session Ray Plzak made a few closing remarks and again thanked Cox Communications for sponsoring the meeting. Cox Communications setup the network, the terminal room, provided wireless connectivity, paid for all the meals, breaks and the Monday evening social.

Sponsor