RE: Can a customer take IP's with them?

["David Schwartz" <davids () webmaster com>]

> David,
>
> Isn't renumbering an obligation?
>
> > I wonder if their ARIN application says anything about planning to
> > renumber their existing space from NAC into the newly assigned space...
> >
> > -davidu

        It's hard to see how his customer failing to meet obligations to ARIN is
going to be considered relevant to his relationship to his customer. ARIN
isn't a party to the dispute, and the ARIN renumbering requirements aren't
directly intended to benefit the ISP. In fact, one could argue that a
customer renumbering is to the detriment of their ISP because it reduces
lock in.

        A court is going to look very specifically at three things:

        1) What is the hardship to the customer if the TRO is not granted.

        2) What is the hardship to the ISP if the TRO is granted.

        3) Is the customer likely to prevail in whatever is the actual claim that
gave rose to the TRO (which we have no clue).

        I think it doesn't impose a significant hardship on the ISP for the court
to grant the customer the right to continue using the IPs and advertise them
from another provider for some reasonable amount of time. How much of a
hardship forcing the customer to renumber immediately is, I don't know. And
what the real claim is, I don't know either.

        The tack I would take is to use the kettle defense -- to attack all the
prongs. First, I'd argue that there is no hardship to the customer in
forcing them to renumber immediately, spreading the pain out over time
doesn't lessen it. I'd further add that the TRO's false urgency was created
by the customer -- they already had plenty of time to renumber, so if losing
the IPs was such a hardship, it's only because they failed to mitigate it by
acting diligently. Second, I'd argue that letting them keep the IPs is a
significant hardship on me, because it makes me responsible for resources
over which I have no control whatsoever. A security problem might require
immediate filtering to protect my other customers, and I won't be able to do
that. Third, I'd argue that the customer always knew that the ISP's were his
only so long as he continued to buy my service, and so he is asking for
something to which he knows he has no entitlement.

        All of this assumes that you didn't disconnect him for a bad reason and
were reasonable in negotiations with him. You weren't really trying to lock
him in and using his IPs and his difficulty with renumbering to blackmail
him for more money, were you?

        DS