RIPE, High Fees and Cronyism

[jamie dyer]

 My apologies if this is rehashing old meatloaf. I'm new to
this list and am greatly interested in the future assignation of
IP space. I guess I should get a hobby:)
 First off, I'm in agreement that IP space needs to be managed
carefully. I don't think anyone disputes this.
 I believe that the proposed fees are WAAY too high, however.
Compared to RIPE, ARIN's rates are exorbitant. Consider:

(as of 1/17/97, the ECU=approx. $0.83)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
RIPE NCC Billing Procedure and Fee Schedule
1. The 1997 fee schedule is as follows:

     Enterprise registries:         ECU 2200.- / year
     Service Provider Registries:
     Small                          ECU 2200.- / year
     Medium                         ECU 3000.- / year
     Large                          ECU 4000.- / year
     Supernational                  Multiple times large registry
                                    Please contact <billing at ripe.net>
     Start-up fee for registries
     established during 1997        ECU  1300.-

     2. Registries established during the course of the year are charged as
follows:

     +----------------------------------------------------+
     |established during   charge                         |
     |                                                    |
     |1st quarter          start-up fee + full yearly fee |
     |2nd quarter          start-up fee + 3/4 yearly fee  |
     |3rd quarter          start-up fee + 1/2 yearly fee  |
     |4th quarter          start-up fee + 1/4 yearly fee  |
     +----------------------------------------------------+
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 I see nothing on the ARIN page about partial years. Did I overlook it?

So, unless I'm misunderstanding, here's how I see the simplified
view for a small assignation:
                 STARTUP                    YEARLY
RIPE             ECU1300(approx. $1040.00)  ECU2200(approx. $1760.00)
ARIN             $2500.00                   $2500.00

 This doesn't take into account the ASN fee, nor the membership
fee(does anyone know if RIPE has similar fees? I didn't have time
to look them up just now.).
 I'm glad the ARIN proposal is just that, a proposal. I think
section 1.1 is begging for abuse down the road. It WILL lead to
cronyism, nepotism, and all the other isms associated with money
and power. IP addresses are going to be like phone numbers at some
point and to have 5 people electing each other and running the
organisation that takes in and manages the money made from IP
allocation is setting up future generations to be fleeced.
 I don't see anything wrong with charging for IP numbers. I'd
just like to see it be a lot more reasonable. And I'd also
like to see the the BoT be somewhat more accountable to the
Internet community.


jamie
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