[c-nsp] Help getting an ASN from ARIN... practical experience appreciated

[Sam Crooks]

Hello,

 

I asked this question on NANOG, but I lurk here and thought I may get some
useful information here as well.. Apologies to those who see it twice.

 

 

 

The organization I work for is in the financial and banking transaction
processing business (authorization of transactions, and settlement and
clearing of fund transfers).  For those that have an idea of what is
involved in accepting credit cards at the merchant level, we are several
tiers up from the consumer-merchant interface level.

 

 

To offer new products involving accepting these transactions over the
internet, obviously high-availability is a must. meaning a Provider
Independent IP address space, multi-provider, multi-site, multi-homed
connections to transit providers and assignment of an ASN.

 

>From reading guidelines and policies on ARIN, we would fall into the
category of End-User for address and ASN allocation.

 

It is my understanding that the minimum address allocation is a /22 for
end-users, and that the criteria from obtaining an ASN are either unique
routing policy (which seems fairly ambiguous to me) OR a multi-homed site
(that's us).

 

So, it is also my understanding that unless you have a /20, many AS's
aggregate the routes to you and you may be unreachable from these AS's.

 

We won't necessarily need a /20 (for maybe 1-2 years initially, anyway),
except for global reachability.

 

Should I request a /20 or a /22?

What sort of bureaucratic and administrative obstacles can I expect to have
to overcome?

 

Now assuming I am allocated PI address space, is it as simple as providing
the AS numbers I have peering agreements with, my address block to be
announced, paying the fee and submitting an application?

 

 

What sort of obstacles can I expect?  I perused the ASN listing and it looks
like somewhere in the neighborhood of 18k-20k ASN's are assigned.  I also
notice several of our competitors on there, and I imagine they are end-user
status as well..

 

 

 

Any help and advice negotiating the administrative hurdles would be greatly
appreciated (off-list if you'd like).  I have about 12 years experience in
enterprise networking in small-medium size organizations, but my internet
experience as something other than a customer is somewhat limited.

 

Thanks for your time,

 

 

Sam