[arin-ppml] fee structure

[John Curran]

On Mar 29, 2013, at 9:09 AM, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 8:41 PM, Jimmy Hess <mysidia at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It certainly makes sense, that it could be more expensive on a
>> per-resource basis to be an End user, and go to ARIN,  in some cases,
>> for a small amount of resources.
> 
> Hi Jimmy,
> 
> For the past decade and a half, the claim has been that ISPs are more
> expensive for ARIN to interact with because they SWIP and have other
> frequent interactions with ARIN while end users mostly appear once and
> except to pay their bills are never heard from again.

Generally correct (regarding more interactions and service 
use than end-users) Historically, ISPs have also come back
repeatedly for additional blocks of address space.  It is
probably worth reviewing that aspect over the long-term 
once we get to general IPv6 usage; the fee schedule actually
is a solid step towards closer harmonization between ISPs
and end-user fees in that respect.

>> Perhaps the ARIN membership  cost to be full member and have voting
>> rights; instead of being a $500/Year,  extra fee  for just end users,
>> should be a fee of whatever amount is required  on top of the
>> resource,  transfer, allocation fees  during the year (for both end
>> users and ISPs),  to bring the total annual amount to a minimum of
>> $1400  to initially establish membership, and $1200 a year thereafter
>> to maintain membership.
> 
> That would indeed restore the status quo. Here's a more radical idea:
> why not scrap the end-user $500 poll tax and let *every* holder or
> ARIN resources under RSA or LRSA vote?

We want to make sure that we have an electorate which is actually 
interested in participating in governance of the registry and many
end-users are not (at least, once they get their address block.)
To this end, we'll likely always have a nominal fee for membership
for end-user, but I believe it should be reviewed to see if $500 is
the right amount.

FYI,
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN