Oppose more ISP fees

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

At 9:34 AM -0500 1/27/97, The Innkeeper wrote:
>> >>From    Rol Murrow  Chairman, Air Care Alliance
>> >                    President, EVAC
>> >                    Northeastern Representative, AOPA
>> >
>> >Additional fees are unnecessary and completely contrary to the interests
>of
>> >the public in expanding public access through the internet.  I am
>involved
>> >with more than thirty struggling volunteer-based public service
>> >organizations, most of which already find the domain name registration
>costs
>> >to be excessive.  In effect, high costs prevent them from developing
>public
>> >exposure on the internet, to the great detriment of the public in
>learning
>> >about such valuable services.
>>
>> Could you clarify this a bit?  Are you saying that the additional fees
>are
>> unnecessary because the function is adequately funded through other
>means,
>> or that fees are detrimental to the functioning of certain organizations
>> that contribute to the common good?
>>
>> If the former, are there proposed functions that you consider not needed,
>> thus reducing costs on which fees should be set?
>>
>> If the latter, where do you believe the funding should come from?
>Perhaps
>> a tax on for-profit Internet users?  From specific governent funding>
>
>I think Rol may have a point he may not intend to have Howard.  Maybe he is
>saying there should be something built in for other non-profit
>organizations to receive limited IPs for their internal use at a possible
>discounted cost??  At least this is what I am getting out of the statement.

That certainly is a way to interpret it.  I have two concerns about any
special handling of not-for-profits.

First, let's assume that ARIN fees are significantly passed on to end users
by large providers.  Would you agree this gives a small not-for-profit
needing a small prefix (say a /24 or a /20) a special incentive to get
provider-independent space?  In other words, while the not-for-profit might
not have a full justification for a direct allocation per RFC2050 criteria,
this is an exception to those rules.

Let's again assume this incentive exists.   It would appear to be behavior
that runs contrary to the technical drivers for provider-based aggregation
that are well established in RFC2050.   If these groups are especially
small, they also might tend to try to administer provider-independent space
without also being able to fund the in-house staff that operationally can
handle an address block in the global routing system.

Second, there certainly have been taxes on communications services to
subsidize certain things in the common good.  A not infrequent one is a
telephone tax to pay for local enhanced 911 service.

I have a philosophical problem with this, although I understand the
political reasons it often is done.  If 911 is a social good -- and I
believe it is -- why should it be subsidized only by telephone users?  The
general population draws benefit from it.  I would far rather, if a
municpality needs funding for 911, to see them fund it through general
taxes.

In like manner, we might all agree the provision of some service is a Good
Thing and we want it to happen, but if that service helps the general
population, why should it be funded out of Internet users rather than
general taxes, etc.

This approach reminds me of something I personally hated in college.  The
university bookstore was extremely proud that "all of its profits went to
scholarship funds."  I did not have a scholarship, so what those signs
meant to me is the bookstore was not discounting to all students, but
making me -- in very marginal financial conditions -- subsidize the
scholarship students.

I also look at things such as the Combined Federal Campaign charity
contribution system.  Originally, it was for a small number of generally
accepted charitable associations.  After litigation, its ranks were thrown
open to literally thousands of not-for-profit organizations, raising the
administrative costs of the program.

By establishing special handling for small not-for-profits, we open the
possibility of raising ARIN costs, and thus fees, because of the increased
workload of handling many small requests.

I have no problem at all with having some mechanisms to encourage Internet
visibility of small not-for-profits.  But I think the funding mechanism
should be out of general taxes (i.e., a fund for small NFP is established
out of taxes, and the NFP applies for grants under it), or from voluntary
foundations.

Howard Berkowitz
>
>Stephan R. May, Sr., Manager, Southeastern Online System Services
>                   http://www.sols.net    the_innkeeper at sols.net
>                     VOICE: (304)235-3767   FAX: (304)235-3772
>Proud member of the Association of Online Professionals Board of Directors
>                                        http://www.aop.org