[arin-discuss] SPAM-WARN:Re: ARIN Fee discussion

[Owen DeLong]

>>
>> Should it be a bell curve distribution?  Half-bell?  Linear?
>> In other words, if there are about 3000 members, should the
>> distribution be (for XXL/XL/L/M/S) 15/500/2000/500/15 or
>> 15/100/250/600/2000 or 15/300/600/900/1200?
>
> Why in the world should anyone in ARIN community accept the current  
> fee
> structure or a bell curve fee structure.
>
> I would remind everyone of this excerpt from a message from Stephen  
> Sprunk
> on 5/31/07:
>
> <Begin Excerpt>
> Current stats per ARIN Member Services:
>
>             # Members   % Members   % v4 space   % fees
> Xtra Small      390        14.8         0.29       5.7
> Small         1,571        59.8         4.64      42.6
> Medium          518        19.9         8.92      28.0
> Large            71         2.7         6.87       7.7
> Xtra Large       73         2.8        79.28      15.8
>
> (The last column didn't come from ARIN, but I calculated it from  
> the fee
> schedule.)
> <End Excerpt>
>
Your calculation leaves out a couple of factors, and, if you're going to
put a % fees amount up, you should also put up a % costs column.
Indeed, if it were possible for ARIN to develop those two columns,
I think it would be interesting to see the data.  However, I suspect
that ARIN does not track the exact time spent on each request, so, it
would probably be hard to track that number.

I think that the argument for a flat fee structure based on IP  
utilization
is no more valid than the argument for a flat membership fee.
After all, theoretically, people are paying for membership in the
organization and for registration services, not for the amount of space
they receive.  Most membership organizations have a single annual
membership fee.  The ones that do not, usually have something
very close to a bell-curve similar to that of ARIN.  For example, they
may have student, youth, individual, family, corporate, sponsor, and
other membership categories at different prices.  Generally, the higher
you go on the pricing structure, the fewer members you find, although
you also tend to find relatively few members in the very bottom  
categories
as well.  Most members tend to be found in the middle area, much
like ARIN.


> Note that 73 Xtra Large members control over 79 percent of ARIN  
> allocated IP
> space and they pay 15.8 percent of the allocation fees. There are  
> several
> obvious issues here, including conservation and fair-play. I am  
> surprised
> that 2300 victims do not have anything to say on the issue.
>
Looking at this from a different perspective, why should those 73  
members
have to subsidize so much of the cost of those other 2300 members?
Why should 2.8% of the members pay 8 times as much as the other
97.2% of the membership?

The current fee structure is an effort to balance the discrepancies  
on both
sides of this equation.  It's a little bit a case of large+ members
subsidizing the membership costs of the smaller ones based on increasing
prices for greater consumption, and, a little bit a case of the largest
consumers receiving some level of volume discount.

Lee, what would the fee per year look like if ARIN charged a single flat
fee to all subscriber members (LIR/ISP members)?

Also, Lee, is it possible to get some idea of what percentage of ARIN's
annual costs are fixed and what percentage are incremental per
allocation.  Finally, would it be possible to get the average number
of allocations and the average number of email/telephone interactions
per year for each size category (I suspect the latter is more Leslie's
domain).

Thanks,

Owen


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