[arin-ppml] fee schedule

[Stephen Sprunk]

Jo Rhett wrote:
> On Oct 22, 2008, at 2:05 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>   
>> It's like a UNIX man page.  If you have never encountered the
>> particular software program, the man page for it is indecipherable.
>> But once you understand the program the man page becomes obvious.
>>     
>
>
> No, that's not it at all.  The page has numerous "follow-me" paths  
> that dead end.
>   

Hmm.  I don't see the dead ends...

> Example: starting with the heading "Initial [IPv4] Assignment Registration Fee"
>   

This is at: 
http://www.arin.net/billing/fee_schedule.html#ipv4_assign_initial

>> ARIN charges an initial registration fee to organizations that  
>> receive an assignment of IPv6 address space directly from ARIN. ARIN  
>> will only complete the assignment of the address space upon its  
>> receipt of this payment and a signed Registration Services Agreement  
>> (RSA).
>> The initial registration fee is based on the amount of address space  
>> assigned as outlined below.
>>     
>
> Okay, nice table showing the assignment fee.
>   

Good so far.

>> Annual Maintenance Fee
>>     
> Ah, okay, so how much is the annual maintenance fee?
>   

Next Heading: Annual Maintenance Fee

>> Organizations must pay a consolidated annual maintenance fee to  
>> cover all AS numbers, IPv4 or IPv6 assignments, or network transfers  
>> associated with an Org ID. However if the Org ID is also associated  
>> with a direct allocation of IP address space from ARIN, this fee is  
>> not charged.
>>
>> For details about this fee, please see the Annual Maintenance Fee  
>> section of this Fee Schedule.
>>     
> Okay, so I click the "Annual Maintenance Fee" link and jump to there:
>   

Link to: http://www.arin.net/billing/fee_schedule.html#annual_maint

>> Annual Maintenance Fee
>>     

Hmm...  That's two sections with the same heading; very confusing.

>> An organization will receive an invoice for its ARIN annual  
>> maintenance fee two months before the fee is due. The due date for  
>> fees is the last day of the month in which an organization's  
>> anniversary date occurs.  An anniversary date is the day on which an  
>> organization received its first resource from ARIN. Payment must be  
>> made by the due date, in accordance with the Registration Services  
>> Agreement. If fees are not paid, the number resources related to the  
>> invoice will be subject to revocation.
>>
>> When a single Org ID has more than one resource registered with ARIN  
>> (e.g. AS numbers, IPv4 or IPv6 assignments, or network transfers),  
>> ARIN charges only a single maintenance fee of $100 annually.
>>     
>
> The next section is online payments.  So my question is not answered.   
> So I scan the entire document and .. guess what, there's not a single  
> table in the document labeled "annual maintenance fees".  What is my  
> annual maintenance fee?  How do I figure this out?
>   

See above (in your own quote) where it says "ARIN charges only a single 
maintenance fee of $100 annually."  That is the maintenance fee for 
end-user orgs, regardless of how many resources you have or how big they 
are.

I do think the wording could be a bit clearer, and the differences 
between end-user and LIR fees are definitely not clear enough for those 
who aren't aware of the distinction between "assignment" and 
"allocation".  Even here on PPML, folks use the wrong term on a daily basis.

Suggestion to Lee: Break up the document into an LIR section, an 
End-User section and a Legacy End-User section.  Each section would 
describe the fees for new resources of each type (except legacy, 
obviously) and annual maintenance.  That would eliminate a lot of 
jumping around.

> NOTE: I do personally know the answer for my company.  But this  
> doesn't change the fact that I couldn't use this page to document  
> that, because you can't get from here to there without information not  
> available in the page.
>   

All the information is there.  However, it's sort of like a man page: 
you can't find it unless you already know the answer (and sometimes, not 
even then...).

> The entire document is riddled with "follow-me -> dead end" paths like  
> this.
>   

I haven't found any examples of that yet, but I agree that it's tough to 
read in its current arrangement.

S