Dear LIRs, Be assured that we take this matter very seriously and we are doing all we can to improve the situation. All suggestions made by the "17th May Task Force" and agreed by the LIR WG were implemented (since May 2001) and resulted in a significantly lower response time as you can see on the yearly Hostmaster Waitqueue graph (last graph on the following page): http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/mem-services/registration/rttqueue/rttwaitqueue.... Due to market developments (i.e. increase of mergers, take overs, closures) and unforeseen issues with the implementation of the new "Minimum Allocation Criteria" policy in November 2001 we experienced an unexpected high work load since mid January 2002 (as described in our previous mail). These factors appeared unfortunately at the same time. We are currently preparing a detailed report for you to be presented at the RIPE 42 Meeting. However, we are going to send a preliminary summary early next week to this list. Kind Regards, Mirjam Kuehne External Relations RIPE NCC