I don't think it's a standard practice, but it is not an unreasonable one. We have, to my knowledge, only done this once. In the case where we did it, we were quite sure the money was owed us. Owen

From jcurran@nic.near.net Mon Mar 21 21:07:21 1994 To: owen@netcom.com cc: mak@aads.com, bmanning@is.rice.edu, regional-techs@merit.edu Subject: Collections via routing control Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 00:03:15 -0500 From: John Curran <jcurran@nic.near.net> Content-Length: 1256

-------- ] (Owen DeLong) ] ... ] If PA decides not to approve the NACR, the NACR does not happen. The ] issue can eventually be forced, and it is usually easier to renumber ] the customer. Some less professional providers have done this. Other ] providers have gone so far as to issue their customers individual ] 8 bit subnets of class B networks owned by the provider. In fact, ] some providers (reasonably so, IMHO) refuse to approve a NACR until ] the leaving customer has paid their final bill (or the bill up to ] current, anyway). Afterall, turning someone off for not paying for ] service IS a reasonable collections tactic. It's used by almost every ] utility, and Network Service Providers, although competitive, are basically ] a utility. If the network number moves somewhere else, then the old ] provider has no ability to shut down the connection.

Wonderful. This practice makes it likely that a client with a billing dispute will suffer a service outage during transition. Given that I've seen billing disputes go both way, it's not exactly reassuring.

Are there any providers that have made this their standard operating procedures? It might help to know which engage in this practice for transition planning purposes.

/John