I am expanding the discussion list to NANOG and the ARIN Members mailing lists. Please post comments PUBLICALLY, or if you feel you cannot do so without "cloaking" yourself, through someone else (who you trust to strip the attribution). Towards a more fair fee proposal: I would like to ask the AC to direct Kim Hubbard to produce a list of the number of allocations in each of the fee categories currently listed, along with the documentation required to process each.
From this I believe we will find:
1) *TO BE FAIR*, one must document all allocations and use in all existing space at least bi-annually (once every two years) when coming back for more space. 2) A smaller allocation history naturally has less to produce. Therefore, I argue that the fees should be *proportionate* to the existing space. The smallest allocation, a /19, is 8192 addresses. Let's say that we set the "desired entry price" at $2,000. Therefore, the "cost per address allocated, including the current request", is set at, say, $0.25. Now Mr. Big Provider comes in and wants space. They have, let's say, the equivalent of an /8. They pay ~$4M under this formula. Obviously, we have just set the cost too high. Ok. ARIN has an operating budget of $2M. So we cut the base cost by 90%. Therefore, the /19 requestor pays $200 (!), or 0.025 cents per address IN USE, including the NEW requested allocation. Mr. Big Provider pays ~$400,000 Annually. The first allocation you request in a calendar year, you get assessed for ALL space you have, including the request you put in for. So if you have a /16, and ask for another /16, you get assessed for 65536 * 2, or 128k addresses. This works out to a fee of $3276.80. Note that if you ask for less, the fee is lower. There's your resistor on people asking for more than they need - it costs money (regardless of whether or not you get approved!) This is *FAIR*. We're now charging for the amount of verification work to be performed and EVERY allocation is treated equally. Now the reality is that this will put us WAY over budget. This is GOOD. What we need to do then is cut the base membership fee to something that ordinary people can afford - $50/year. The stakeholders should have a say in this, and the stakeholders, folks, are the average users. Would someone please tell me why this isn't a more proper fee strategy? -- -- Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin http://www.mcs.net/ | T1's from $600 monthly / All Lines K56Flex/DOV | NEW! Corporate ISDN Prices dropped by up to 50%! Voice: [+1 312 803-MCS1 x219]| EXCLUSIVE NEW FEATURE ON ALL PERSONAL ACCOUNTS Fax: [+1 312 803-4929] | *SPAMBLOCK* Technology now included at no cost