[arin-ppml] Open Letter Regarding 650% Rate-Hike for Legacy Users

[Owen DeLong]

> On Sep 15, 2021, at 13:05 , John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:
> 
> Mark - 
> 
> In April of this year, we announced a consultation on the matter of harmonizing ARIN’s fees and many of the issues you raised were discussed at that time on the ARIN-consult mailing list - https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-consult/2021-April/date.html <https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-consult/2021-April/date.html>
Yep and despite lots of dissent over the idea, the board chose to proceed anyway.

> As noted in that discussion, 3621 end-user customers will see their fees decrease as a result of change.  4431 end-users (those with larger IP address holdings) will see their fees increase.  After the fee changes, all customers will be paying the same fees based on their total IPv4 resources held. 

That’s little consolation when your one of the people bearing the brunt of providing that subsidy.

> Regarding ISP/EU fees distribution, note that ARIN’s expected total fees paid in 2021 are approximately $21 million – with ISP’s paying the overwhelming majority of the costs at approximately $17M annually. 

With ISPs representing the overwhelming majority of resources received and the overwhelming majority of ARIN transactions as well.

Owen

> 
> Thanks,
> /John
> 
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> American Registry for Internet Numbers
> 
> 
> 
> On 15 Sep 2021, at 3:21 PM, Mark McDonald <markm at siteserver.com <mailto:markm at siteserver.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Mr. Curran,
>> 
>> It’s unfortunate to learn about ARIN’s proposal to increase our rates by 650% from one year to the next from your EMail.  It would have been nice to receive this when this measure was being proposed.  In looking through various member forums, it appears we aren’t alone.  While I can appreciate your desire to standardize rates between End Users and ISP’s, it’s obvious that ARIN provides a different set of services for ISP’s as it does End Users.  For us, ARIN stores < 50k of data in a database - similar to a Domain Registration from Network Solutions.  They’re somehow able to perform these services for about $9/year.  ARIN has historically charged us $300/year for this service, and is now raising rates by 650% to $2000.00/year.  And for what?  The IPv4 pool is depleted so there is no value in attempting to obtain additional IPv4 resources, while IPv6 resources are limitless, and are charged accordingly.
>> 
>> For End Users, there are no ongoing SWIP assignments or ongoing actions from ARIN that require ARIN’s resources and for those that there are, ARIN charges for those services (new assignments, transfers, etc).  We maintain numerous resources with ARIN through a different ISP account for resources used for ISP services and pay fees (and utilize services) accordingly.
>> 
>> When ARIN, or any organizational body, sends out an email stating rates are raising 650%, it makes me question how an organization that could do something for a a set fee for so long suddenly can’t and needs to implement drastic measures to “recoup” these fees.  It wreaks of inefficiency as ARIN’s number of resources managed is going up, not down and with any business, the cost to provide services goes down as the number of customers (resources) goes up.
>> 
>> I was trying to look through the ARIN organizational documents and recent Annual Reports to see how ARIN’s income is represented (percentage of ISP vs End-User, RSP vs Non-RSP) as your Email lacks this important information, however I was unable to find this.  It would be much appreciated if you could provide it.  As a user of ARIN’s services, it would be nice to see exactly how much of a rate increase this is (increasing ARIN revenue) vs standardizing rates, which would re-rate *everybody* (raising some, lowering others) so that ARIN’s revenue remained neutral while equally balancing costs to provide services.
>> 
>> In owning and operating businesses in the IT space, I’ve always viewed ARIN as a fair and equitable organization.  Until today.  Your email lacked critical information that would have shown this as a “standardization of rates” vs a rate hike on what appears to be all legacy customers.  Perhaps the rates ARIN is charging them isn’t too low, but the rates you’re charging ISP’s is too high, or perhaps somewhere in between.
>> 
>> From the Emails I’ve already received from other parties this affects, it appears the courts will ultimately decide what is legitimate and what is not, however I feel this could have all been avoided with better communication.
>> 
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Mark McDonald
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