To whom it may concern, Late last Friday Simon Poole of EUnet/CH lodged a serious complaint against the RIPE NCC which was given wide circulation. Since I start hearing about this from different directions and I am unable to find out the exact circulation given to the original complaint I have to give this message a wider circulation than probably necessary. If you are a recipient who has not seen or heared about the original complaint, please accept my apologies and read no further. To the others I apologise for the lengthy message but such matters are rarely simple enough to fit into one paragraph. With kind Regards Daniel Karrenberg RIPE NCC ------ Glenn, Simon, After a thorough investigation of the matter I conclude that the complaint by Simon refenced below is toally unjustified. The complaint is referring to a telephone conversation which certainly did not refer to a specific request and was otherwise not substantial enough to be logged at the NCC which is standard procedure. For more details about the specific case, see the enclosure. We have *certainly* not stated that "the request has been dropped" because -as you know- we do not drop requests as a matter of policy. We have *certainly* not stated that "EUnet/CH have not paid their bills" because EUnet/CH has not received any bills from us and it is our policy not to discus such issues with third parties. There also were *certainly* no questions about a specific request as we would have then logged the call in order to return it. Since the communication concerned was by phone and not substantial enough to be logged, or for names to be noted on both sides, it is difficult to reconstruct what has happened in detail. Noone at the NCC recalls having had the particular conversation. We handle quite a few such calls per day. The most probable scenario is that the caller asked about a standard message which we send since February 1st, incorrectly identified his request as being sent via the *EUnet/CH* local registry (not the Last Resort registry) and was correctly told that his request would be processed on a "time permitting" basis because EUnet/CH does not presently contribute to the NCC funding. Maybe language difficulties played a part in misunderstanding here. This case falls into a familiar pattern: - Consultant starts project, requests address space - NCC asks for more information / suggests less address space - nothing happens for several weeks (more than 2 months in this particular case, certainly not "roughly two weeks") - Consultant passes deadline, resends request (sometimes slightly modified) - Consultant starts calling NCC on a daily basis In this situation any excuse for the lack of progess is good enough for consultant. We have had some very unhappy customers (of consultants) calling us with the most bizarre stories. The NCC deliberately dropping requests is one of the more "boring" excuses I have heared in cases like this. So I have to conclude that we have *certainly* not made the statements you complain about. I find it *very* inappropriate to give such complaints wide circulation including the TERENA Executive and Secretary General before raising them with the NCC. I take personal exception with the fact that it was given such circulation *without even notifying the NCC itself*!. All this makes me conclude that it is not a genuine complaint, but mud slung in a political battle. I would apreciate if complaints would be raised with us first, before being given a wide circulation. My staff will be happy to investigate any problems and as you know I am always available in the unlikely event you find their response inadequate. I would also apreciate if you could give this response the same circulation within EUnet as Simon's original complaint. With kind Regards Daniel Karrenberg RIPE NCC Manager Enc: Results of request investigation Fri, 18 Nov 1994 14:31:03 +0100 Request received. Tue, 22 Nov 1994 09:58:00 +0100 Requested background information from CH Last Resort registry. No response to date. Tue, 22 Nov 1994 19:25:52 +0100 Requested further information/justification from consultant. No reponse to date. Wed, 1 Feb 1995 11:46:23 +0100 Received similar (same) request directly by fax from other consultant (same consultancy company) without any justification (1 page). This request does not refer to the original one more than 2 months earlier *at all*. Therefore it is classified as a new request from an "individual" not channeled through a registry. Thu, 02 Feb 1995 14:12:00 +0100 Standard response sent that individual requests are in the "time permitting" queue. The requests have been handled correctly: The first one is waiting for information from the requestor. The second one is waiting in the "time permitting" queue until it can be processed. Now that we know that they are probably the same, we will combine them and continue to process it as coming via the CH Last Resort registry.
From: Glenn.Kowack@eu.net To: Steve Druck <VUSTEVE@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il> Subject: recently uncovered (unpleasant) surprise Date: Sun, 05 Feb 1995 18:25:27 +0100
Steve, I received this mail from Simon Poole, managing director of EUnet-Switzerland:
_______ From: poole@eunet.ch (Simon Poole) Subject: Re: EUnet and the RIPE NCC.... Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 18:43:59 +0100 (MET)
As you may know we run the registry of last resort for Switzerland, a community service which cost us a lot of money and gives us a tiny bit of PR.
Roughly two weeks ago our staff member that handles the registry stuff forwarded a request for a class B to the NCC, the organisation that requested the address is neither a customer or in any other way related to us.
Today our staff tried to find out what had happened to the request, and heard the following from the client: the Ripe NCC had decided to drop the request because we (EUnet/CH) had not paid their bills.
This is obivously from any perspective outrageous.......
Simon _______
I am now very concerned. This is unreasonable and entirely outside of the spirit of your and my discussion last week. Last week's announcement was sufficiently dismaying, since it was handed to us as a fait accompli. Now we're confronted with at another nasty surprise, this one a past action. Are there more surprises waiting in the wings? I've got some very very unhappy directors, including at my national networks.
What the hell is going on?
-Glenn
To whom it may concern,
Late last Friday Simon Poole of EUnet/CH lodged a serious complaint against the RIPE NCC which was given wide circulation.
Considering the fact that EUnet sent this request directly to exactly one external responsible person and did not make our complaint public in any form, I can only assume that you are trying to make a preemptive strike. As you know, I spent a significant amount of time yesterday verifying the story and have come to the conclusion that the story related to me by my staff is true in all essential parts (in the impression created on the consultant). Some of the fuzziness in what was originally related to me, may be attributed to our staff member being extremely embarrassed and shocked after receiving the call from the consultant. I do not doubt that the (wrong) impression created on the consultant may be due to misunderstandings and to language difficulties, which can be attributed to a new and inexperienced member of your staff and to the consultant being under pressure. However this can not be our problem, what effects us are the net results of this situation however they may have arised. And to recapitulate, the consultants impression was: - EUnet AG owes the NCC money and had not paid. - his request was not being processed because of the above. And while you may try to argue away all responsibility, you can not deny that the NCC delibertly put procedures in place (and has made statements), that have a high risk of leading to such "misunderstandings". Simon Poole EUnet AG, Managing Director
poole@eunet.ch (Simon Poole) writes:
And while you may try to argue away all responsibility, you can not deny that the NCC delibertly put procedures in place (and has made statements), that have a high risk of leading to such "misunderstandings".
We have not deliberately created a wrong impression about EUnet AG. We have not even carelessly created a wrong impression about EUnet AG. You have accused us - *behind our back* - *to a wide audience* - without verifying your facts first - without asking us for a reaction first of doing both. This is mudslinging. The victim of mudslinging has no choice but to react publicly, otherwise something always sticks. The procedures we have had to put in place and the reasons for it are a totally different subject. This ends the discussion as far as I am concerned. Daniel
Daniel writes:
We have not deliberately created a wrong impression about EUnet AG.
We have not even carelessly created a wrong impression about EUnet AG.
Again, the only thing I care about is that a member of our staff got a phone call on Friday afternoon from an unhappy consultant stating that his request was not being processed because we hadn't paid our bills to Ripe. Except if you accuse me of being a liar and fabricating the story, there is no denying the above fact. How he got that impression I can only deduct from what he told me on the phone yesterday, but he -did- get it from the NCC.
You have accused us
- *behind our back* - *to a wide audience*
We took this privately to your immediate formal superior, you went public.
- without verifying your facts first
The facts have been double checked (we might disagree on what the actual incident is).
- without asking us for a reaction first
We asked your superior for a reaction, nothing else. Simon
poole@eunet.ch (Simon Poole) writes:
You have accused us
- *behind our back* - *to a wide audience*
We took this privately to your immediate formal superior, you went public.
You took it to my immediate formal superior's superior. Small detail, but still escalated out of proportion. You did not take it up with me first. You must have given it wider circulation because I received questions about it from several parties not on the quoted messages, some of which inside EUnet.
- without verifying your facts first
The facts have been double checked (we might disagree on what the actual incident is).
You did that *after* making the complaint. This really closes it now. Daniel
participants (2)
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Daniel Karrenberg -
poole＠eunet.ch