An increase in Merger tickets

Dear Colleagues,

In our previous email we felt it was important to notify you that specific 
issues had arisen that
had resulted in an increase in the current response time length and that we 
were working to
address these. We would like to take this opportunity to explain in greater 
detail one of these
issues.

When we compare the first quarter of this year with the same quarter last 
year we see that the
number of hostmaster tickets/requests relating to Mergers and Closures has 
risen from nearly
5 tickets per month to over 27 tickets per month (an increase of more than 
500%).

Mergers, closures and takeovers of LIRs are notably complex for a variety 
of reasons. The
process of merging, closing or taking over another LIR involves the 
transfer of IP addresses
and AS numbers. This is necessary to ensure that Internet resources are not 
lost and that
they get registered properly in the RIPE Database. Often, the new or 
remaining LIR is not
aware of all the addresses involved in the process. This is specifically 
the case with 'old' LIRs.

It can also mean that part of the address space could be returned if, 
through a merger or
takeover, an LIR receives more address space than needed. In many cases 
contact persons
of the LIR closing or being taken over hold all of the knowledge and are no 
longer reachable.
This could lead to wastage of Internet resources as the addresses are very 
difficult to trace.

All of this uses a lot of resources. We realise that those LIRs merging, 
closing or being taken
over already have address space to add to their own and their customers' 
networks, whereas
other LIRs that send requests to the RIPE NCC are in need of address space. 
We would like
to give priority to the latter, but for the reasons listed above it is not 
always possible to have a
lower response time.

The process must be carried out separately for every LIR involved and 
having to communicate
with each LIR's contacts can often add to the delay.

A new draft procedure document titled "Mergers, Acquisitions, Takeovers and 
Closures of LIRs"
has been drafted and can be found at:
http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/mem-services/registration/policies/draft-documents/

We hope that this will provide better guidance for the LIRs who are 
involved in this process.

Regards,

Dominic Spratley,
RIPE NCC
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