[arin-discuss] ipv6 fees in new fee structure

[Robert L Mathews]

On 2/22/13 3:47 PM, Alex Krohn wrote:

> In the new pending fee structure here:
> 
>     https://www.arin.net/fees/pending_fee_schedule.html#isps
> 
> ISP's that have up to and including a /20 (X-Small) and who were "early"
> adopters and received a /32 IPv6 allocation which was the minimum
> allocation size at the time, will see their fees double.
> 
> This was discussed on the lists a lot in the past in this thread:
> 
>     http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-discuss/2012-March/002112.html
> 
> and a lot of opposition against seeing the rates double or being forced
> to get a /36 and re-number.
> 
> What was the rational with going forward with this and not making a /32
> be in the X-Small (or XX-Small I suppose), as that was the minimum size
> available for a lot of people?

I'm in the same situation. We were allocated a /32 in early 2011 because
that was the smallest allocation available under NRPM 2011.2 at the
time. If a /36 had been available, it would certainly have met our needs
forever.

Since we only have (and probably only ever will have) /21 of total IPv4
space, the /32 from the IPv6 pushes us from "X-Small" to "Small" and
doubles the fees from $1,000 a year to $2,000 a year.

I asked ARIN's billing department last week if there was any solution
for this, since John Curran's comments, referenced above and here:

 http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-consult/2012-November/000446.html

... had seemed encouraging. But the reply was that the only way to
return to X-Small status is to apply for a new /36, then renumber out of
the /32 within 3 months and return it.

Although it'll take at least a couple of days of my time to renumber,
I'll probably do so. It'll save us thousands (tens of thousands?) of
dollars in the long run.

But this outcome seems perverse. If we'd waited two years to implement
IPv6, we'd be charged $1,000 less a year by default. Because we didn't,
we have to renumber into a smaller block to save that money -- not
because renumbering provides any benefit to anyone, but because of a
historical policy quirk.

I suppose one could argue that we're being charged no more than the
eventual post-fee-waiver rate listed when we were allocated the /32 in
2011. That's true, but it doesn't lessen the frustration that other
organizations in the X-Small IPv4 category who now apply for the same
thing -- "the smallest available IPv6 allocation" -- pay half what we'll
pay if we don't renumber.

-- 
Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies