[ARIN-consult] Consultation on ARIN Fees

[Glen A. Pearce]

On 26/04/2021 12:21 p.m., Owen DeLong via ARIN-consult wrote:

> So ARIN is inflicting a financial penalty on the RSA side against 
> those holding on to their LRSA fee protections.
>
> This should stop.
>
> An organization should not be required to pay more than MAX(LRSA,RSA) 
> any more than an organization
> with only RSA resources is required to pay MAX(IPv4, IPv6).
>
> Owen

I'd have to say that I agree with Owen here that organizations with an 
RSA and a LRSA should only have to pay the higher of the two fees for 
their LRSA IPv4 resource (price cap included) or their RSA IPv6 
resources rather than both added together even if they are under 2 
separate contracts.   So in Owen's case this would mean paying $250/year 
(based on his /48 of IPv6) until the capped fee on his legacy IPv4 
creeps over that.

Either that or do what RIPE does (correct me if I'm wrong on how they 
handle it) and keep legacy resources legacy where they stay with the 
original holder who took out membership even if they let their 
membership lapse, this way the LRSA isn't a "trap".  This second idea 
would probably also go a long way towards relieving the fears of legacy 
holders who wouldn't mind chipping in but are reluctant to sign for fear 
of loosing their IP space through an administrative error forgetting to 
renew or simply having a bad cash flow year.

I think this is a reasonable accommodation for people that didn't 
actually have to pay anything but stepped forward to pay what at the 
time they thought was a reasonable amount towards keeping the registry 
running.

I tend to think of legacy registrations as the "native land" of the 
internet, at least that's the analogy I use when explaining it to someone.

Ultimately in the far future when IPv6 is dominant and IPv4 is only used 
for the niche of "retro-computing" and it's users have to tunnel IPv4 
over IPv6 to use it none of this will really matter as everyone will 
either have to pay for their IPv6 space or make do with space assigned 
by their ISP and any IPv4 space, legacy or otherwise, won't have much 
use outside that small niche.

Once you know the full history it does look like a bait and switch 
getting legacy holders to sign under what looked like a reasonable fee 
schedule then shifting the fee schedule significantly afterwards.

-- 
Glen A. Pearce
gap at ve4.ca
Network Manager, Webmaster, Bookkeeper, Fashion Model and Shipping Clerk.
Very Eager 4 Tees
http://www.ve4.ca
ARIN Handle VET-17