[ppml] ARIN IP conservation and FREE IP Addresses

[Stephen Sprunk]

Thus spake "Owen DeLong" <owen at delong.com>
> These fees are not for IP addresses.  The fees are for ARIN
> Subscriber Membership.  The total number of IP addresses you
> hold is used as an abstraction for classifying your membership.
>
> For someone who holds a /20, the next /20 is technically free, too.
> Regardless of the increments in which it comes.  For someone
> who holds a /19+, it doesn't cost any more until they need more
> than a /16.

The point is there is an "until" in there, meaning those people are not 
encouraged to waste addresses indefinitely because they'll eventually have 
to pay more.  Once you pass a /14, you _never_ pay _anything_ more no matter 
how much you waste.

> This is standard tiered pricing and it's a way to simplify the
> pricing structure so that the cost of computing a bill does not
> increase the amount of money that needs to be collected.

Either way, the amount of address space an org has needs to be calculated. 
Anyone with a modicum of programming experience can tell you that it's 
easier to multiply that number by a fixed per-IP rate than it is to try to 
determine which of five pricing tiers the org falls into and return a 
different fixed rate for each.

I have yet to discover any argument _in favor_ of the current fee schedule, 
much less one that offsets its complexity, barriers to entry, and 
encouragement of massive waste.

S

Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking