Re: Why does Sprint have address filters again?

[Karl Denninger <karl () mcs net>]

On Fri, May 29, 1998 at 04:55:49PM -0400, Doug Humphrey wrote:
> > 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.

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