[ncc-services-wg] RIPE NCC transparency and response SLA

Dear Marco,

I'm very surprised to receive a reply of this sort from you. I have carefully checked our tickets #396177 and #401465 and was unable to find there ANY explanation at all on what's actually going on and why it takes weeks on the RIPE NCC side (even when we asked to escalate the reported processing delay issue to the RIPE NCC management a few weeks ago).

All our questions in the mentioned tickets are unanswered and the only response we get:

- Ticket 1 latest reply from Sep 6: "Our apologies for not being able to get back to you sooner. We will provide you with feedback asap. "

- Ticket 2 latest reply from Sep 20: "Please be informed that we will continue with your request when we have been able to complete our due diligence checks, we will get back to you as soon as possible."

So, since we are waiting for 3 business weeks in the first case and for 1 business week in the second, it seems the RIPE NCC have a very special understanding of "as soon as possible".

How can we change such strange behavior and non transparency of the RIPE NCC for the better as a RIPE community member and to whom can our incident be escalated if the RIPE NCC management is not the correct addressee for a complaint?

Regards,
Elina 

> Dear Elina,
>
> While I can't discuss the details of your case in public, there are some 
> factors that require additional analysis (we tried to explain this to 
> you in the ticket).
>
> We will be in contact with more information soon.
>
> Kind regards,
> Marco Schmidt
> Registry Services Assistant Manager
> RIPE NCC
>
> On 23/09/2021 20:42, noc at netispro.com wrote:
>> Dear Marco,
>>
>> I can understand that some complex cases like mergers, transfers or ownership disputes can take an additional time to be processed due to the excessive amount of documents that needs to be evaluated on the RIPE NCC side, but here I'm taking about a simple LIR account application from a company within the RIPE NCC service region. I thought it's a routine business process for the RIPE NCC and thus it's sad to hear that it's a special category request for you.
>>
>> However, we were waiting for 19 days till September 8 and received just a request for additional corporate documents. Why does a routine documents request takes 19 days to be sent on the RIPE NCC side and why couldn't it be sent on the next business day (August 23)? The RIPE NCC exists for almost 3 decades and thus it's also sad to see that no standards for requests processing have been developed during this time.
>>
>> We returned all the requested additional documents on September 18 and after 4 business days they are still not processed or we haven't received at least an estimation of waiting time required. So, our initial request is under processing for more than 1 month, we don't know what's happening and we got back to my initial post here regarding transparency of the RIPE NCC requests processing. I'm afraid that we have to wait for 3 more weeks just to receive a valid reply and it's still strange for me that the RIPE NCC can hold any request without any valid reason and for any period of time while processing the requests from the other members within the regular 1-2 business days.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Elina
>>
>>> Dear Elina,
>>>
>>> We have continually been processing requests, including those sent after
>>> 20 August. However, some tickets require more time due to the nature of
>>> the request as well as other factors, and yours falls into this
>>> category. We will soon contact you directly about your request.
>>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>> Marco Schmidt
>>> Registry Services Assistant Manager
>>> RIPE NCC
>>>
>>> On 05/09/2021 23:29, noc at netispro.com wrote:
>>>> Dear Marco,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for your detailed reply in the members-discuss mailing list, however none of my questions is actually addressed there.
>>>>
>>>> Our request is in processing since August 20, could you confirm that due to the "heavy workload" you are currently processing only requests received before this date? I can't really believe it since the other members told me about just 1-2 business days delay (that seems completely normal to me). Also, I was notified that our request should be processed till the end of this week and now it's Sunday and we have just a generic "we will get back to you soon".
>>>>
>>>> I have always thought that the RIPE NCC provides services to all the members in the same order and under the same terms, but as we can see here some members actually have more rights than others. Requests from some organizations are processed within 1 business day, while others have to wait more than 2 weeks without any deadlines.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Elina
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Elina,
>>>>>
>>>>> We are aware that the wait time is a problem for members and we are
>>>>> working to address this. We have shared some more details in another
>>>>> response on the members-discuss mailing list:
>>>>> https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/members-discuss/2021-September/004359.html
>>>>>
>>>>> We will contact you about your request soon.
>>>>>
>>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>> Marco Schmidt
>>>>> Registry Services Assistant Manager
>>>>> RIPE NCC
>>>>>
>>>>> On 02/09/2021 00:30, noc at netispro.com wrote:
>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I remember that such issues were repeatedly discussed at the RIPE meetings, but I would still like to raise the question of the transparency of the RIPE NCC procedures and response SLA for the (future) members' requests.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Our company is already an active RIPE NCC member and on August 18 we decided to open an additional LIR account in order to get an allocation for our operations through the waiting list. The application was processed as usual until we paid the invoice and returned our signed agreement (August 20). After that the whole request got out of control and over the last 10 days we've received only standard replies that the Registry Services team experiences "heavy workload" and our application is postponed again and again without any additional request or explanation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thus, despite the stated aim of "providing a response within one working day", our request remains in processing for a significant time and the RIPE NCC refuses to even provide any details on the reasons or the exact processing time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's also very funny that some replies from the RIPE NCC refer to the additional Due Diligence checks that are required for our application, but since we are incorporated in a country with a public transparent corporate register, are not subject to any EU sanctions and already hold a RIPE NCC membership that was duly checked before the activation, it just looks like an unconvincing excuse that only misleads us.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have discussed this issue with other members and many of them told me that they have encountered similar problems when submitting various kinds of requests (allocation, assignment, transfers) in the past. It looks like the RIPE NCC can simply stockpile inconvenient, complex or any other requests without any valid reason and for any period of time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thus, I kindly ask the RIPE NCC to comment on this issue and answer a couple of questions:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. Why some of the requests are delayed due to the "heavy workload" excuse while the requests submitted later are timely processed?
>>>>>> 2. Why we (as an applicant) aren't able to get any information on our request status and exact processing time for weeks?
>>>>>> 3. Are similar cases actually reflected in the internal ticket statistics and what measures are taken by the management to solve this problem?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Kind regards,
>>>>>> Elina
>>>>>>
>>>>>>