[arin-ppml] Draft Policy ARIN 2020-3

[John Sweeting]

On 10/12/20, 10:48 PM, "Andrew Dul" <andrew.dul at quark.net> wrote:

    On 10/12/2020 4:43 PM, scott at solarnetone.org wrote:
    > Hi Andrew,
    >
    >>> This applies, however, only to those who do not subscribe to the
    >>> Registration Services Plan, if I understand correctly, as subscribing
    >>> to said plan converts one from End User to ISP automatically. 
    >>> Needless to say, there are organizations that are end users by
    >>> functional definition here, but subscribe to the service plan, and/or
    >>> choose to be an ISP for other reasons.
    >>
    >> My understanding is that subscribing to 'Registration Services Plan'
    >> does not change you from an end-user to ISP, it just gives you access to
    >> the services available under that plan and the resulting fee schedule. 
    >> You can presumably decide to go back to classic 'pay by the resource
    >> option' as an end-user if you didn't need the extra services or
    >> preferred the alternate fee calculation.
    >>
    >>
    >
    > From https://www.arin.net/resources/fees/fee_schedule subsection 'End
    > Users with Registration Services Plan':  "Organizations that choose to
    > convert to the Registration Services Plan will be evaluated as an ISP
    > from a policy perspective when requesting future Internet number
    > resources from ARIN."  While this _may_ be intended to indicate that
    > they will be billed based on the ISP fee schedule for additional
    > resources, it in effect can (and may be intended to) indicate that in
    > all number policy related matters, they will be viewed as an ISP.
    
    Well, the one-way aspect of this choice to move to the End User w/
    Registration Services Plan and the reevaluation as an ISP for policy
    purposes is additional information to me in this discussion.
    
    JS, is the one-way option documented publicly (other than where you just
    did so on PPML) ?

(JS) Today it is not documented on the ARIN website (we will correct that immediately); however, it is spelled out very clearly in the first reply to any EU organization requesting to convert to an RSP. Here is the language in the canned reply:

"Thank you for your request to convert the Direct Assignment Service(s) to a Registration Services Plan (RSP). By electing to subscribe to the Registration Services Plan you are agreeing to a one-time change from an end-user to an Internet Service Providers (ISPs) RSP. The organization may not revert to an end-user.  The Registration Services Plan service category fees apply."

We will make this prominent on our website as well. 
    
    I can see why from a $ perspective this may be valuable to an
    organization at one point in time.  I can also see where down the road
    it could go the other way for an organization. 
    
    In general, I don't think its probably a good idea to reclassify
    organizations as "ISPs" for policy purposes when they do so primarily
    for fee purposes, especially with regard to IPv6 policy.  
    
    For example, an "end-user" organization had some IPv4, an ASN, and an
    IPv6 /48.  And at some point opted to be a Registration Services Plan
    End-User.  Now suppose they wanted to get another /48 for a different
    distinct location (non-connected, but also multi-homed), well that would
    not be permissible under policy because they are now an ISP, and they
    would need to get a least a /36 under current policy and they probably
    wouldn't qualify for anything because the subsequent allocation
    requirements for ISPs in 6.5.3 are quite high.
    
    There seems to be some unintended potential long-term negative
    consequences to the one-way option with end-user registration services
    plan and force application of ISP policy onto primarily end-user
    organizations.
    
    
    Andrew