[ARIN-consult] Consultation on Approaches for Adjusting the ARIN Registration Services Plan Fee Schedule

[John Curran]

> On Apr 6, 2024, at 1:59 PM, Chris Woodfield <chris at semihuman.com> wrote:
> 
> I feel like option #2 would be more palatable if there was some sort of external constraint, such as tying the annual increase to CPI or other index.

Acknowledged.  There are several possible indexes commonly utilized for such purposes, so that is fairly easy to accomplish. 

> If there’s concern that such an index might not track with costs, remember that this only covers fee increases that can be implemented without a community consultation - the Board can always vote to raise fees higher if truly needed, they just need to consult, such as current status quo. Hasn’t been a huge hurdle in the past.

Agreed.  The Board of Trustees certainly has the tools (and the duty) to handle such situations; the question is really about how the community wishes to handle the impact typical inflation-based cost changes – i.e. should ARIN have an adjustment process that incorporate such (within some reasonable bound), or would the community prefer the existing approach maintaining present fees unchanged as long as possible, but recognizing that the changes & restructuring that follows a few year could represent substantial increases. 

> Regarding a “use it or lose it”, I’ve seen similar rules/laws (thinking mainly of some municipal rent control statutes) where a capped increase can be banked, so assuming a 5% cap, it would be possible to increase, say, 4% one year, then 6% the next, leveraging the banked 1% from the previous year. 
> 
> This has been implicitly stated, but support for this policy from me would need to hinge on an explicit scope limit stating that any reorganization of fees (read: anything that doesn’t simply add an inflationary index to the existing fee structure) would not be covered by it.
> 
> I do concede the concern that this could more or less bake in increases in ARIN’s costs, as vendors, staff, et al are in a better position to predict ARIN’s revenues in the future and could use that info against ARIN in pricing negotiations. That said, there are enough other variables (on the plus side: legacy space coming under LRSA or RSA via transfers; on the minus side, increases in inter-RIR outbound transfers)  that could impact the top line, which I’d hope could blunt this some.


We are indeed seeing a significant increase in resources under agreement – but note that many of those have the benefit of the legacy resources fee cap and hence don’t quite generate the same revenue as one would expect. 

Thanks for the input Chris! 
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
American Registry for Internet Numbers