> >When the rate increased, NSI asked, and NSF granted, a change that would
> >increase NSI's profits, but not increase NSI's risk.
>
> You don't have a clue. I guess the facts just don't matter to you when
> it's so much more interesting to make stuff up.
Nobody is making things up.
NSI had, and still operates under, an administrative procedures
contract/cooperative agreement.
Nobody disputes that.
That contract/cooperative agreement is the sole and exclusive source of
NSI's authority over the root zone and the various TLDs it administers.
Nobody disputes that.
When that contract/cooperative agreement ends, so does NSI's hegemony
over the root zone and the various TLDs it administers.
Few dispute that.
That contract/cooperative agreement specifically calls for procedures
through which the government can, at the governments sole discretion, pass
the job onto a sucessor to NSI.
Nobody disputes that.
SRI was doing the same job before NSI did.
Nobody disputes that.
Things were smaller in the past.
Nobody disputes that.
NSI had a profit guaranteed by the cooperative agreement.
Nobody disputes that.
That fee was all that NSF offered in its procurement and that is all that
NSI bargained for when it submitted its bid.
Nobody disputes that.
Despite the growth in registrations, the government was obligated to pay a
fee above and beyond NSI's costs.
Nobody disputes that.
When the rate of registrations grew, the government wanted to avoid the
expense of paying all of those fees.
Nobody disputes that.
The rate of growth was sufficently fast that the government wanted felt
that it didn't have the time to rebid the contract.
Nobody disputes that.
NSI asked NSF to amend the contract to allow fees in lieu of cost+fee.
Nobody disputes that.
Until that time, NSI had a government guaranteed profit under the
cooperative agreement.
Nobody disputes that.
Since then NSI has had a government protected monopoly on an
"exponentially increasing" market.
Nobody disputes that.
One has only to read the IETF and other mailing lists (NANOG) to learn
that NSI's performance during the first few years was substandard.
Only you dispute that.
Over the last few years NSI's service and performance have improved. But
it still has many problems.
So tell me, where do you see NSI being an energetic, constructive,
entreprenureal company?
Where did it take risks with its own money and withoug a government
paid for safety net?
What has NSI done except build an order taking and billing system of no
particularly large scale?
NSI's business is to collect $35 a year to *not* remove a record from a
database.
A technological marvel it ain't.
Trying to wrap it up as an entrepreneural flag and claim that it is on par
with Intel, Microsoft, or IBM is merely a way of attempting to distract
the viewer's eye from the fact that NSI is a largely sucessful form of
that kind of creature known as a "beltway bandit".
--karl--
