[ncc-services-wg] Complaint: Overly complicated when requesting PI space

Dear Jeroen, Florian and all,

The RIPE NCC has an internal escalation procedure for handling concerns 
about the way your request has been handled. You can ask for any request 
to be escalated by sending an email to hostmaster at ripe.net and quoting 
the relevant NCC# ticket number. Your request will then be reviewed and 
assessed by senior staff.

If your concern is of a more serious nature, please refer to the RIPE 
NCC's Conflict Arbitration Procedure available online at: 
http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/arbitration.html

Regards,

Laura Cobley
RIPE NCC Registration Services


Jeroen Wunnink wrote:
> Hello Members,
> 
> I'd like to state a complaint toward overly complicated issues with 
> requesting PI space as a LIR for a customer.
> 
> Situation: I have a customer who's purchased a router and wants his own 
> IP space+AS number to start multihoming. Since he's pretty new to 
> routing and policies of RIPE and managing the database to keep things 
> going, we as LIR offered him to do this for him at the startup phase. 
> Currently he'll be hosting several services from within our PA ranges 
> and will start growing his new resources in the PI space he wants.
> 
> After filling in the request forms, his AS got approved pending the PI 
> /24 range assignment. And that's been a process that's currently 
> becoming something ridiculous.
> 
> Initially I got some return questions on how the subnets would be sliced 
> up, what would be used for management of the routers, if IP's are being 
> assigned statically or dynamically, how much IP's a customer would use 
> and if PA space is being returned. Questions (except for the 'how much 
> IP's will a customer use') I can understand and all answered.
> 
> Then in a follow-up I got asked what the montly growth is, who's 
> administratively responsible for the IP's and how they're going to be 
> used on the servers.
> 
> Then in a next follow up I got pointed to using PA space either from us 
> or a different provider or that the customer should become LIR himself 
> since we as LIR cannot sub-allocate PI space. (something that's not 
> intended in the first place at all, we just administer it on a contract 
> base until he understands procedures)
> 
> And then after explaining that we will only help the customer on 
> contract base and not sub-allocate anything, another follow-up comes 
> that no customer can use more then 1 or 2 IP's and once again a question 
> on how many servers are involved here.
> 
> And that's where I'm at now. I've been trying to request PI space for 
> our customer since last friday, and in my opinion there's too much 
> meddling into internal business by RIPE here and this is taking a 
> ridiculous amount of time and communication.
> 
> As a LIR we hand out IP space responsibly to our customers, for a good 
> technical and administrative reason we have a customer who wants his own 
> PI assignment and I'm asking him questions about his business that lean 
> towards a company secret. In my opinion RIPE has absolutely no business 
> in asking how many customers and/or servers someone has and stating that 
> a customer can not use >2 IP's in that PI space (what if someone has 
> *gasp* 3 SSL websites ?, I cannot imagine that happening.., ever).
> 
> Also neither we or our customer has a crystal ball to see in the future, 
> so sure I can tell the amount of customer growth I'll be expecting or 
> HOPING to see, but come on.
> 
> I know IPv4 space must be handed out responsibly, but this is seriously 
> going too far, especially for a LIR. Supposedly I cannot give a 
> routing-reason for requesting PI space, but part of that IS important on 
> why I'm requesting it. It's really not desirable for us AND for my 
> customer to chop out a part of my PA space and announce in smaller 
> chunks from his own AS on the same exchange points we're on and this 
> customer is NOT at the stage yet to become a full LIR himself.
> 
>