[ppml] Policy Proposal 2007-8: Transfer Policy Clarifications

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

> >The current fee structure puts everyone on a more-or-less 
> level playing
> >field which is important in an organization like ARIN.
> 
> Then end users should be paying the same as me. I can't agree that 
> the SWIP record for my /22 and two additional SWIP records are so 
> much more burden than the single SWIP record for a /22 for a 
> multi-homed non-ISP as to be the differentiator of paying or not 
> paying an annual fee. Either all should pay, or a system that IS 
> equitable should be arrived upon.

"More-or-less" means that we don't try to calculate the exact cost
burden of every activity. Instead, the costs are roughly partitioned
into fee levels that are considered to be broadly fair by most people.
Trying to be more exact would result in an unwieldy fee system, not to
mention the extra cost of trying to measure the burden at a more
granular level. It would also have the MAJOR disadvantage of being
unpredictable. Today, you can predict what your fees will be from year
to year and you can predict at what point you will jump up one level in
the fee schedule. However, if fees were calculated based on the burden
to ARIN to serve you, then you would not know your fees until after the
fact. And you can't predict how many ARIN interactions and what type of
interaction you might need in any given year.

Why do most ISPs charge customers a flat monthly fee rather than
per-hour or per-megabyte fees? Because it is cheaper to all concerned
and it is predictable so everyone sleeps better at night.

> It's possible part of the issue is the definition of "ISP." We don't 
> sell circuits. We have no turnover of SWIPs because we are a hosting 
> shop and with the exception of a couple of customers, most of our 
> customers are delegated a /32 from us, and that's below the threshold 
> of doing SWIPs.

We are at the largest fee level and we also don't do SWIPs. Instead we
run our own rwhois server.

The bottom-line is that if you want to change ARIN's fee structures, the
PPML is not a good place to discuss it. This is an issue for ARIN
members to deal with, while the PPML is a public policy list where
anyone can influence ARIN's IP address policies. It is not possible to
make a policy proposal to change the fee structure.

--Michael Dillon