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

[Owen DeLong]

On Oct 9, 2007, at 11:27 AM, David Muir Sharnoff wrote:

> * I can only remind you all that ARIN is a bottom-up organization,  
> not a top
> * down one.  There is no class of members who are victims, only  
> classes of
> * members who fail to participate.
>
> The cost of meaningfull participation in ARIN exceeds one year's  
> tithe.
>
> Until this discussion came along, it seemed the only meaningful way
> to participate in ARIN was to go to one of the ARIN meetings or to
> run for one of ARINs director slots.  For most of us, attending one
> of the ARIN meetings would cost more than just paying the yearly
> fee.  The most we could hope to gain by participating is less than
> the cost of participating.  Generally, only organizations big enough
> to absorb the costs of participating actually participate.  That
> usually ends up being the same thing as top-down.
>
I was participating in ARIN meaningfully well before I attended a  
members
meeting or ran for AC.  The ARIN PPML has been an effective method
of participating in ARIN for many years now.  The PPML is for all  
intents
and purposes absolutely free. (You pay the cost of sending and receiving
your own emails, but, I think we can call that effectively free.)

My initial participation in ARIN was as an individual representative of
an end-user organization consisting of not more than 4 people.  My
total investment in said participation was $100/year plus $0 additional
costs to support my email (vs. what I would spend to do other internet
access anyway).  If you want to count my entire internet costs that
year, my annual cost was $1,600, so, not much more than an X-Small
subscriber member's fees.

While the community does not show consensus for some of my ideas
on how things should be, I certainly do not feel that my input has been
ignored or that it has received any less consideration than input from
organizations like Verizon, SPRINT, AT&T, etc.  Indeed, I believe that
more of the policies I have drafted have been adopted than those
drafted by AT&T or Verizon representatives.

The ARIN-DISCUSS mailing list has expanded that ability to facilitate
topics which are not appropriate to PPML and to keep an open
channel for the community (that's right, it's not even limited to
the membership, it's open to the entire community) to communicate
their opinions with each other and with the ARIN BoT, AC, and
staff.

> Every year, I read of the list of candidates and look for one that
> has a statement saying something like: "The fees are too high and I  
> will
> lower them" or "the fees are disproportionate and I will make the
> large users pay more."   So far there has been no such candidate.
>
Are you talking about the BoT candidates or the AC candidates?

The AC candidates can't do anything about fees, so, of course there
would not be one making such a statement.

As for the BoT, frankly, I think that this is the first time there has
been any real discussion of this particular subject.  I don't believe
that ARIN's fees overall are excessive.  I do think that it might make
more sense under the circumstances to make the fee structure
somewhat more topheavy than it currently is (i.e. raise fees on
the large and x-large orgs.), but, I don't think that would lower
the fees as much as you expect for the other orgs.  Let's look at
the math:

Current:
            # 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

>
So... Let's say we changed the fee structure so that we doubled the  
Large
and X-Large fees and distributed the savings evenly to the other  
categories
of membership.

First, the total amount collected under the current structure is:

Size			# Members	Price @		Total Collected
X-Small		  390		 1,250		  487,500
Small			1,571		 2,250		3,534,750
Medium			  518		 4,500		2,331,000
Large			   71		 9,000		  639,000
X-Large		   73		18,000		1,314,000

Total									8,306,250

Now, here's what it would look like if we doubled the fees for
Large and X-Large members:

Size			# Members	Price @		Total Collected
X-Small		  390		   462		  180,180
Small			1,571		 1,462		2,296,802
Medium			  518		 3,712		1,922,816
Large			   71		18,000		1,278,000
X-Large		   73		36,000		2,628,000

Total									8,305,798

The additional amount collected from the 144 members
in those two categories would be 1,953,000.  This
would be divided amongst the 2,479 other members
providing an annual savings to each other member
of approximately $788 each.  The discrepency
of $452 in the total is the result of rounding
the savings UP to 788/member in the smaller
categories.  I think the easiest way to resolve
that would be to increase the medium fee by $1,
resulting in a $56 surplus.

An alternative exercise:  How much would each member
pay if we simply all paid the same amount without tiered
pricing based on allocation size:

Total members: 2,623

Price per member: 3,167

So... Medium, Large, and X-Large would, by that method,
actually pay less, while X-Small and Small would pay
more.

I don't believe a flat fee would be fair. I also don't
believe that linear pricing based on IP resource
utilization is fair.  I am not sure that the current
structure is the best compromise between the two, but,
I think it does come reasonably close.

> The only other thing that ARIN could do to make my life easier would
> be to publish a better rwhois daemon or an easier API for changing
> SWIP/POC delegations.
>
Email templates are a difficult API?  Interesting.

I think that ARIN would rather deprecate RWHOIS at this point.  I know
that the original author wishes he'd never developed it and would
like to see it permanently deprecated.
> Hopefully this discussion we're having now will result in lower fees
> or rebates for most of us.

I guess the question is to what extent the majority should be allowed
to penalize the minority on the sole basis that they are running larger
organizations, have more or larger customers, etc.

Note, all of the subscriber member organizations I currently work with
would benefit from increasing the fees on large/x-large and lowering
other fees.  However, in spite of that, I don't believe either of the  
fee
structures I mentioned would be better than what is currently
in place.


Owen

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