[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN-2013-3: Tiny IPv6 Allocations for ISPs

[Paul Vixie]

...

Matthew Kaufman wrote:
> ... we have clearly heard that we can't give everyone with a /32 of
> IPv6 the same low price otherwise ARIN wouldn't have enough money to
> operate. ...

can you hum a few bars? that is, i didn't clearly hear that.

> ... We've heard several times that it wouldn't do to have all of the
> orgs holding IPv6 paying $500/year for that, because it wouldn't bring
> in enough money.

this also. (somebody from ARIN, speaking for ARIN, said this?)

> On 4/7/2013 2:05 PM, Paul Vixie wrote: 
>> i've been here nine years now and i've been looking for the avoidable
>> costs or the self-creating monetary vacuum that you're talking about
>> here. i havn't found them. i don't think we'd like (you, me, anybody) a
>> nearly-volunteer system without the controls, outreach, and policy
>> process we're all getting from the RIR system in its current form.
>
> Well, some of the policy process and nearly all of the outreach are
> more than I would want to pay for, personally.
>
> Along with the entire travel budget.

that's a short-sighted view. the thing we live on is round, and
telepresence doesn't reach to the hallways. the RIR system and the
larger internet governance community that the RIR system is part of,
meets all over the world. as someone who just crossed the 85K mile
threshold in the three months since january 1, i'm the first to admit
that we all travel too much. but the travel budget is there for good
reason. (as is the policy and outreach budgets.) if you think that stuff
is all silly or crazy, that helps me understand why you think a
mostly-volunteer org could do the important part of what ARIN does
(maintaining the database) but it also puts a discount on all of your
observations since it's so completely unrealistic.

> But even if it is true that ARIN is being exceptionally frugal, the
> draft policy is bad policy and we're only talking about it because
> ARIN doesn't want to ("can't") simply charge everyone the x-small
> price and be done with it.

i think that arin is reasonably but not exceptionally frugal. and i'm
listening carefully to your comments about the fee schedule.



Matthew Kaufman wrote:

> ... Or, even better, a flat price for all. But of course there *would*
> be some opposed, because for every choice it isn't "fair" to someone.  
i think it's safe to say that any fee schedule will be deemed unfair by
someone. that doesn't mean we should balance the perceived unfairness.
rather, it means we have to form and then follow a theory of objective
fairness.

> This is just like the US tax system... nobody thinks that any of the
> models are "fair". Flat tax? Unfair to the poor. Higher taxes for the
> rich? Disincentive to working harder and unfair to the rich. You can't
> win.  

we're way off the topic of arin policy at the moment, but i'm concerned
that you think the progressive tax system is a disincentive to working
harder. no matter how high the next tax bracket up might be, you keep
more if you earn more. my incentives are based on what i earn and keep;
are yours based on perceived fairness?

>> I don't see it so much as extracting extra revenue so much as
>> differentiating the allocation of the total costs.
>
> Those are exactly the same thing. One just sounds better than the other.
>
> The idea is that you find the people who are willing to pay more, you
> figure out how to charge them more. In this case, you take some of
> that "extra" revenue and use it to drop the prices for the people who
> aren't willing to pay as much. Classic pricing theory covers this, and
> I would expect no less from any organization. ...

this is... completely wrong. the ARIN fee schedule is based in no way on
willingness to pay more.

>> I don't believe for a second that ARIN is increasing its overhead
>> just to ensure the money gets spent. I have reviewed the ARIN public
>> financials several years in a row and I believe that ARIN does a
>> great deal for the community at a very reasonable cost to said
>> community.
>
> We've had offers to do it for less.  

can you be more specific? has someone offered to maintain ARIN-like
registry records for you, at a lower cost? got a URL? if someone out
there can do it for less it may simply be that their real business model
is in trading addresses and the registry function is a sunk cost for them.

> [the ARIN Board] apparently can't figure out how to run ARIN in a
> world where everyone with a /32 pays the kind of fees that these
> "extra small" ISPs claim they can afford. That's not a numbering
> policy problem.  

i think it is a numbering policy issue. in an address space with 4
billion /32's, the dominant cost to the community of any allocation will
be the global routing table slot not the allocation, but the need for
size categories still exists, simply because larger allocations (when
justified) are a more conservative use of those routing table slots.
that's a settled issue, though you're welcome to reopen it with a policy
proposal of course. from the settled policy on this topic, fee schedules
are constructed.

paul