[ARIN-consult] Consultation on ASN Fee Harmonization

[John Curran]

On Jul 10, 2023, at 2:28 PM, Steve Noble <snoble at sonn.com> wrote:
...
I have a lot of questions:

1. The above paragraph states that there are approximately 6800 organizations holding a single ASN and more specifically 313 with multiple ASNs, what is the actual number of organizations with a single ASN and no other resources?

Steve –

The ~6800 are ASN-Only holders (no IPv4 or IPv6 resources) with a single ASN.    The 313 are ASN-Only holders (no IPv4 or IPv6 resources) who have multiple ASNs.

2. How many single ASN holding organizations are members of this mailing list?

Unknown.  The arin-consult mailing list is open to all interested parties who comply the Mailing List AUP and ARIN Participants Expected Standards of Behavior – these are not correlated to ASN holders.

3. Based on the maximum savings, the largest only ASN holder has 15 ASNs (150*15 - 1750 = 500) and the smallest multiple ASN holder has 2 (300 - 50 =250).  What is the breakdown within the 313 affected parties of the # of ASNs they hold?

Note that the distribution is subject to change (as parties acquire/dispose of ASNs) but here’s the present approximation –

1 organization has 15 ASNs.
1 organization has 12 ASNs.
1 organization has 11 ASNs.
1 organization has 10 ASNs.
1 organization has 8 ASNs.
2 organization has 7 ASNs.
1 organization has 6 ASNs.
5 organization has 5 ASNs.
11 Organizations have 4 ASNs.
42 organization has 3 ASNs.
247 organization has 2 ASNs.

4. The customer impact is significantly unbalanced where over 95% of the organizations fees increase vs the 2021 changes (https://www.arin.net/participate/meetings/ARIN49/materials/426_feemembership.pdf slide 7) where ~50% stayed the same. Why is this not clearly stated in the document?

That’s not quite correct - ASN Only Holders represent 30% of total customers [where total customers are Service + General + ASN Only.]

(If one adds uncontracted legacy customers to that total, ASN-Only holders represent only ~18% of total customers.)

5. Of the impacted organizations, how many pay for membership separately?

None, as paid membership was removed as part of the 2022 fee schedule change. This change (ASN Fee Harmonization proposal) in fact provides Service Member status to all ASN holders.

6. Of the impacted organizations, how many have requested IPv4 resources?

Indeterminate, as it is often possible to request resources without supplying ASN holding information and thus correlated.

7. What is the overlap of single ASN holding organizations paying for membership and requesting IP space (two items claimed in the benefit section).

No one is paying for ARIN Membership since the 2022 fee schedule change

(All organizations holding IP number resources under agreement have had service member status since Jan 2022, and can request General Member status if they wish to participate in voting & ARIN governance discussions).

ASN-Only holders will now have Service Member status as part of the ASN Fee Harmonization proposal AND will be able to request corresponding IPv4 and IPv6 space if they choose with no change in fee category.

8. For due diligence, based on the data ARIN has compiled, how many of those single ASN organizations would qualify for IPv4 resources and be approved and have them allocated within the billing period that this change would happen? Does ARIN have 6800 /24 IPv4 blocks available to allocate to the affected parties?

They would all qualify for IPv4 or IPv6 if they are running a network and using their ASN to run BGP.   It probably goes without saying that there is more than enough IPv6 resources for all ASN-only customers...

For IPv4 resources, many would end up on the IPv4 waiting list today, but note that for those who wish to run IPv6, there is enough 4.10 transition IPv4 space (~14.5k /24s are available under 4.10 as of June 2023) to theoretically issue 4.10 IPv4 transition blocks to all of the ASN-Only holders.

In summary, based on the information provided so far, I believe that raising prices for 6800+ organizations to slightly lower the cost burden of 313 is unfair and unreasonable. There has been no data provided to show what the cost of serving a single ASN organization is other than your aggregate groups showing that it is <=$15.

This change provides for recovering costs more equitably for services to across the ARIN customer base, with the added benefit of making ASN-only customers ARIN Service Members, thus providing them with the opportunity to become General Members and participate in ARIN governance if they so choose.

In addition to bringing all ARIN customers into a unified, equitable fee schedule, the ASN Fee harmonization will facilitate ASN-only resource holders obtaining IPv4 and/or IPv6 resources if they choose to do so.

Btw I noticed while trying to research the membership fee information (https://www.arin.net/participate/oversight/membership/) the page has many broken links.  I don’t even see the current membership fee information on the latest fee page (https://www.arin.net/resources/fees/fee_schedule/) vs the 2018 page (https://www.arin.net/resources/fees/fee_schedule/2018_fee_schedule)

It appears that all links on that page are functional – please identify any specific links that you are unable to access.   It is correct that the membership fee information is no longer present, as membership option was removed with the 2022 Fee Schedule change (as per https://www.arin.net/announcements/20211229/)

Thanks for the feedback & the excellent questions!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers



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