[arin-ppml] maintenance fees for legacy space holders

[Stephen Sprunk]

Howard, W. Lee wrote:
> Last week, there was a lot of discussion over the $100 maintenance fee, 
> and whether it was a fair amount for legacy address space holders to 
> pay.   In between my day job and PPML, I've tried to pull together some 
> numbers.  
>
> There are potentially 18,000 legacy OrgIDs who could sign up to pay 
> the $100 maintenance fee.  I see $885k in maintenance fees last year, 
> so call it 8,850 organizations currently paying maintenance fees.  
> Many more OrgIDs exist, since multiple OrgIDs can fall under one 
> maintenance fee, and since many pay registration renewals instead 
> of maintenance.
>
> ARIN's audited financial statements for 2007 show $3.7 million in 
> engineering expenses, out of $9.8 million in total expenses.  Roughly 
> 38% of ARIN's expenses are engineering expenses.  Even if all of the 
> possible 18,000 legacy organizations pay $100 per year, that's less 
> than 15% of ARIN's total 2008 budget, and less than half of ARIN's 
> engineering expenses alone.
>
> So, what do you get for the money?  Not just the benefits of 
> engineering:
> *	IP address (IPv4 and IPv6) space allocation, transfer, and 
> record maintenance 
> *	ASN allocation, transfer, and record maintenance 
> *	Maintain WHOIS database 
> *	Maintain Internet Routing Registry 
> *	Maintain reverse DNS 
> *	Facilitate the public policy development process, including: 
> 	o	Maintaining mailing lists 
> 	o	Facilitating elections 
> 	o	Holding at least two public policy meetings per year
> *	Publishing, disseminating information 
> *	Education and training 
> *	Working with other organizations, like the other RIRs and IANA 
> *	Outreach to other organizations, like ITU and IGF 
> *	Outreach at other industry events, like NANOG, IETF, and various
>
> conventions
> *	R&D on potential new services like a RPKI, Project X, etc.
>   

Lee,

Thanks for the numbers, as well as the list of services.  I have two 
questions:

1. Is there any way to break out new allocation/assignment/transfer 
expenses vs. general maintenance, so that we can determine the share of 
expenses attributable to folks who are doing nothing other than holding 
on to legacy resources, not getting anything new, as well as making sure 
that the fees for new resources adequately cover the costs of evaluating 
justification that policy requires?

2. What would the fees need to be if they were per-object instead of 
per-org?  IMHO, this is the key to the whole "a domain only costs 
$10/yr" argument.

S