[arin-ppml] A modest proposal for IPv6 address allocations

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> Matthew Kaufman wrote:
> >>   
> > Yes, you've missed something. That the cost of running a 
> > near-automated system for allocating address space is 
> > several orders of magnitude [lower] than $562.50/year, 
> > and certainly won't be going *up* over time as IPv6 rates will.
> 
> The real point being that the cost of doing an allocation 
> takes someone a short time to review the application for sanity. The cost 
> of keeping an allocation in the database is about the cost of running the whois 
> server and its backing database(s) on an ongoing basis, which 
> is a lot lower than an ongoing $562-2250/year.
>
> Why we've all bought into the illusion that ARIN and ICANN 
> really need this much money to function, I don't know. 

I've been looking at this. It's an interesting problem. There is an unresolved and little-discussed tension between the use of fees as an encouragement to conserve the address space, and the use of fees as methods for recovering the costs of RIR services.

If all we're paying for is the support of ARIN or other RIRs, then the block size an org is allocated rarely has any relationship to the costs imposed. But if fees don't get bigger with bigger allocations, then what's to stop a land rush that could in fact lead to wasteful overconsumption of the v6 address space? 

--MM