[ARIN-consult] Consultation on Proposed 2018 Fee Schedule Changes

[John Curran]

On 9 Apr 2018, at 3:49 PM, Steve Noble <snoble at sonn.com<mailto:snoble at sonn.com>> wrote:
Hi John,

This is a significant change and while you may personally view it as "modest increase", calling it so for those of us with a single object, is incorrect.  I have personally been forced to pay this fee even when ARIN refused to provide any services to me and note: ARIN has not refunded the money paid while you refused to provide any services, especially the ones you list below.

Steve -

   As discussed perviously on several ARIN mailing lists with you, ARIN does prevent
   parties with no clear association with a resource from making changes.  I believe that
   the specific issue has been cleared up in your case, but recognize that ARIN is also
   subject to parties attempting to hijack resources and thus is somewhat pedantic in this
   regard.

If you are claiming that it costs $150 a year to have an entry in a whois server, I disagree, if nothing else it should be going down.

   At this time, we charge $100 per year maintenance fee for all end-user resource records,
   and that is approximately 15% of ARIN’s total revenue (estimated $2.9M USD of ARIN’s
   $20.4M total revenue plan in 2019)

   We charge ISPs (and others who opt for it) under a registration services plan that is based
   on total number resource holdings, and in total is approximate 75% of ARIN annual revenue
   (estimated $14.4M USD of our $20.4M total revenue plan in 2019)

   We presently do not bill either customer category separately for making changes, interacting
   with ARIN, etc.  We could do so, but starting back in 2014 the community spent several
   years discussing fee models and ultimately came down to this simple model of having two
   major categories: ISP/registration services plan and End-users with Maintenance fees.

   That model has generally worked well, but over the next five years will result in a gradual
   reduction of ARIN’s financial reserves to approximately 50% of our annual budget.  Note
   that there are have been times in the past when we had the opposite problem, with reserves
   growing beyond our intended range (and ARIN customers concerned that we weren't fast
   enough in addressing their requests for improvements to our systems...)

   We did add additional staff and have made great progress in improvements to our systems –
   this can be seen in both the list of accomplished functionality <https://www.arin.net/features/>
   as well as the results of our most recent customer satisfaction survey, which we will talk
   about in more detail next week at ARIN 41 in MIami.

   The question now posed by the ARIN Board of Trustees is whether the facilitator fees and
   end-user maintenance fees should be raised, as this would result in approximately $1.4M
   per year revenue and allow the organization to maintain a steady reserves position.

Looking at your tax filings, In 2015, you reported that more than half of your expenses were compensation at 9.1MM. For 2016 the number appears to be 10.8MM.  As Mr. Herrin noted, other organizations that have the same level of complexity, can do the work with significantly less engineers.  As a non-profit you should be focused on delivering value to your customers, not charging more for the same service.

   ARIN is indeed focused on delivering more value to its customers –

   You may not utilize our two-factor authentication system, our RPKI services, our improved
   interface for making resource requests and transfers, our RESTful interface to the registry,
   our RDAP services or now-being-refreshed IRR services,  but even if you do not use these
   services yourself, they make for a better and more accurate registry, and thus improve the
   value received by everyone.  The Board of Trustees ultimately has to decide the rate that we
   invest in our services, the best fee structure for recovery, and the most appropriate financial
   position – hence this consultation seeking input on changing the fee schedule as proposed.

Thank you,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN




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