[ppml] fee clarification was: PPML Digest, Vol 22, Issue 9

[Howard, W. Lee]

When the subject of money comes up, I want to be as clear as
possible.  Discussions of fees really belong on the members
mailing list, arin-discuss, but I personally think the debate 
of whether fees should be a tool in policy is appropriate 
here.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net] On 
> Behalf Of Ted Mittelstaedt
> Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 8:58 PM
> To: mahler at louisiana.edu; ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [ppml] PPML Digest, Vol 22, Issue 9
> 
> Consider ARIN's fee schedule.  Above a /14 is $18,000.00 USD 
> a year.  Why would a legacy /8 holder who is currently paying 
> ARIN not a cent, because they have not signed an RSA, want to 
> sign an RSA to get auto-allocated IPv6 for free so they can 
> start paying $18,000 a year for their /8 and be subject to 
> utilization requirements as well?

http://www.arin.net/billing/fee_schedule.html

Renewal fees are equal to initial registration fees only
for allocations (i.e., to ISPs).  Maintenance fees for 
assignments (i.e., to end-users) are $100 per year.  This is
true both in IPv4 and IPv6 (ignoring the waiver).  

> A legacy holder of a /8 IPv4 that wants IPv6 would be better 
> off simply registering IPv6 by itself and paying much less 
> money.  In fact, that is one of the loopholes I would like to 
> see closed in ARIN's policy.
> 
> A pre-RIR /8 holder who didn't sign an RSA for the /8 could I 
> believe go to ARIN and pay the yearly membership fee of $500 
> and then the minimum $500 under the fee wavier and get all 
> the IPv6 they wanted.  Of course they would be subject to an 
> RSA for the IPv6 but according to the published policies I 
> think they would only be required to demonstrate 80% 
> utilization on their existing /8.  In that case it would be 
> $17,000 cheaper per year for them to NOT participate in an 
> IPv6 auto-allocation program.

This loophole was intentional.  Members pay either the annual
allocation renewal on their IPv4 allocation, or a $500 annual
renewal fee.  As a member, you not only get this waiver, you
also get to vote for Board and Advisory Council members, you
get 2 free seats at the public policy and members meeting
(transportation, room and board are still up to you), and you
get to discuss fees and finances on arin-discuss.

 
> >Make this the last time you have to worry about your 
> existing address 
> >space between now and your retirement.  Make the advantage 
> of switching 
> >to IPV6 that you have room to operate and test for years to 
> come.  Make 
> >it a reason to work thru the headaches of using IPV6.

It's debatable whether we're there yet.  Since ARINs default
assignment size is /48, and default allocation size is /32, 
there's a lot of space for most people to work with.

Is that enough to last until retirement?  Depends on how much
your network grows (and maybe how close you are to retirement).

> 
> I think an auto-allocation scheme would work for IPv4 holders 
> who are paying ARIN now.  What I would like to see is the 
> separate fee schedules for IPv4 and IPv6 to disappear and 
> there to be only a single fee schedule and both IPv4 and an 
> equivalent amount of IPv6 be allocated on each request - in 
> other words, an IPv4 holder would no longer pay 1 fee for
> IPv4 and 1 fee for IPv6, then would pay a single fee for 
> "Amount of IP addressing" they are using.

If you compare the IPv4 and IPv6 Initial Allocation and Annual 
Renewal Fees tables in the fee schedule, you'll see that there
is a correlation.  Since IPv6 initial allocation fees and 
IPv6 renewal fees are waived for members in good standing
(whether subscriber or non-subscriber members), we're not far
from this point now.

I should mention that fee waivers are set to expire at the
end of this calendar year. 

Lee

> Ted