[delays] What about a more pragmatic solution: simplify the assignment procedure? E.g. we had a request for 8192 addresses. In this request, there was a subnet with 64 addresses marked as "reserved". There was subsequent discussion in several emails about those 0.8% of the total request which are mostly irrelevant for address space comsumption. This kind of evaluation is detached from reality. We all know that such a network cannot be planned two years ahead. At the time a new assignment is due, maybe in a year or so, the usage will be different from the requested one. But the honest solution to say "this is our rough plan and expected usage, but details may vary" is not allowed. What's the result of this strict bureaocratic way of handling things? Only that assignment requests are streamlined to RIPE guidelines, but not that address space is conserved. IMHO, introducing a bit of flexibility would not hurt the overall goal, but instead reduce workload on both RIPE and ISPs. Robert