[arin-ppml] Fee structures for ARIN

[William Herrin]

On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 4:38 PM, Jimmy Hess <mysidia at gmail.com> wrote:
> 192.in-addr.arpa  is a "special" zone because it corresponds to a
> reverse zone in which a popular portion of RFC1918 IP address space
> resides.
> For other IP address ranges, the number of  RDNS requests about those
> ranges is much more complicated than merely the 'amount of resources'.

Hi Jimmy,

Then for a moment, lets put aside the fact that holders with larger
ranges tend (in a complicated fashion) to consume more server
resources than those with smaller ranges and consider the matter from
another direction that's less complicated.

Quantity Discount is a very common sales feature tied to a real
effect: large customers tend to be less work (thus less cost) per unit
sold than small customers. ARIN is not an exception, it's exemplary of
the rule: with virtually no source cost to the IP address product
itself, nearly all the cost is tied up in the work done to fulfill the
product's delivery.

Were we ARIN shareholders looking to maximize ARIN's delivery of
product and revenue, quantity discount would serve us well.

But maximizing ARIN's delivery of IPv4 product DOES NOT serve us well.
We have a dire shortage of IPv4 product and zero interest in
increasing ARIN's revenue beyond what it needs to operate in the
black. As a matter of policy, we want to dissuade large consumption of
IPv4 product and encourage purchase of the IPv6 product and even the
return of the IPv4 product instead.

Quantity discount is diametrically opposed to this goal. If we want to
encourage IPv6 and discourage IPv4, the very last thing we should do
is support large quantities of IPv4 at a per-unit discount. Doing so
is contrary to good stewardship of a scarce resource.

A good move?

IPv6 as a loss-leader. Linear or even ballooning price for quantities of IPv4.


Regards,
Bill Herrin


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William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
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