At 23:14 16/05/98 -0700, Michael Dillon wrote:
On Sat, 16 May 1998, Karl Denninger wrote:
agency). Renumbering THEM would be a job out of the depths of Hades itself; even broaching the subject would likely cost us the account.
I see. So if you tell the customer that they need to renumber, then they tell you to stuff it and switch to a new provider who... tells them that they must renumber out of your soon-to-be-reassigned address space.
I just don't see this as a realistic example of a situation in which a renumbering ISP is at a severe business disadvantage. In fact I can't remember ever seeing any such realistic example nor do I ever remember hearing of a case in which an ISP lost a significant amount of business because of renumbering.
(A) Customer was reasonably happy to stay but gets prompted to look elsewhere since the main pain of moving is one he's going to hit anyways. You can't argue this as good for the ISP. (B) Customer is happy to stay and will - but the relationship may be soured somewhat by the renumbering process. There's certainly a LOT more scope for something to barf and a someone to need blaming then for someone to say "gee thanks for making us renumber". (C) Customer decides the pain of renumbering is such that he decides to mocve to one of the really big boys so he never has to do it after this once. Maybe he's wrong and will have to re-address the issue at some point but even so some people may take this not entirely unreasonable attitude. I fully agree that all these people should be able to accept and handle a renumber without too much hassle but that doesn't prevent the fact that there's at least some scope for the customer winding up leaving the ISP over this issue and no scope for the opposite. Thus growing ISPs which have to renumebr more often are going to be disadvantaged. Manar