[arin-discuss] Legacy address holder fees (was: Re: IPv6 as justification for IPv4?)

[John Curran]

From: Jesse D. Geddis <jesse at la-broadband.com>
> What do apple, MIT, and HP an others have to do with ARIN fees? Perhaps you missed my point. MIT is paying $18,000 per year (it could be lower because they're legacy) to sit on as many IPs as the entire small tier is using and paying $5mil or thereabouts for. If MIT or apple or whoever were paying a proportionate amount there's a decent chance they would reconsider the cost/benefit of doing so and not hoard millions of IPs...

Jesse - 

Several hundred legacy address holders have entered into LRSA agreements with 
ARIN, and therefore will be transitioning to paying according to the revised 
end-user schedule of $100 per year for each resource record (subject to any 
cap that may be contained in earlier LRSA agreement which may only allow for 
$25/year increase in fees.) 

ARIN has tried to very hard to leave legacy address holders undisturbed to the 
extent that they simply wish to use their number resources.  This has included 
voluntary entry into an LRSA agreement and nominal maintenance fees. (Some may 
argue that we have not succeeded in our handling of legacy holders, due to our 
requirement that the registry be operated accordingly to the policy set by the 
community in the region, but that is a fundamental principle from ARIN's early
formation that is inviolate.)

While you may suggest raising fees for such legacy holders, it is simply not 
a viable approach because legacy address holders who enter into the LRSA are 
protected from ever paying more than other ARIN registry users - 
<https://www.arin.net/resources/agreements/legacy_rsa.pdf>

"ARIN may increase the Legacy Maintenance Fee after December 31, 2012, provided 
 that (i) the Legacy Maintenance Fee cannot exceed the maintenance fee charged 
 to comparable non-legacy holders for the maintenance service as set forth in 
 ARIN’s Standard Fee Schedule as posted on ARIN’s Website for comparable number 
 resources, and (ii) ARIN must set these fees in an open and transparent manner 
 through the ARIN community consultation process."

 (Thanks to all those legacy address holders who worked with ARIN over the
  years on improvements to the language such as the above... :-)

As the LRSA provides contractual protection from what you suggest, it's likely 
not a fruitful approach to any fee schedule.  Legacy IPv4 address holders are 
the Internet community's legacy (many of them having made rather significant 
contributions in the Internet's earliest years) and they are to be treated as
equals in the establishment of any fee schedule.

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN