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

[Michael Thomas - Mathbox]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Owen DeLong [mailto:owen at delong.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 1:55 PM
> To: Michael Thomas - Mathbox
> Cc: 'Howard, W. Lee'; 'Internet Partners, Inc. Tech Support'; 
> arin-discuss at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-discuss] SPAM-WARN:Re: ARIN Fee discussion
> 
> 
> 		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

The thing that all of your arguments ignore is that there is no relationship
between the fees imposed and the community resources consumed. The resources
belong to the community, not 2.8% of the community.

Michael Thomas
Mathbox
978-683-6718
1-877-MATHBOX (Toll Free)