Advice on Dues and Fees

On Sat, 18 Jan 1997, Jeremiah Kristal wrote:

> I'm not sure that I understand the 3:4, 2:3, 17:41, x:y either, but there
> are many reasons that larger allocations should be cheaper on a per
> address basis than smaller allocations.  Unless someone were to develop a
> new class of router, that could handle many, many more routes than the
> current class of backbone routers (mostly Cisco at this time), *and* get
> all the backbone ISPs to implement them, there has to be an incentive to
> get people to request smaller allocations (/20 or smaller for now) from
> their upstream provider.

Yes, there do need to be incentives for hierarchy and aggregation. I
do not agree, however, that registry fees should serve that purpose. The
issue of routability is an issue to be negotiated between ISPs and their
customers and peers. Prefix fees should accurately reflect the costs of
registering that prefix. No more, no less.

On a different note, I have something else to add. The issue of who will
bear the cost of registry fees has come up recently. I believe this
depends on the elasticity of demand for Internet services. I would venture
to say demand is fairly elastic at this point, although it is probably
getting less elastic as people begin to rely on the 'net for more than
just entertainment. If demand is indeed relatively elastic, then the
imposition of a new tax/fee/whatever will tend to be borne by the
*supplier*, i.e. upstream providers.

-BD