Re: [Wg-apnic-fees] Fee proposal version 2.3

[Philip Smith <pfs@cisco.com>]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for yet another revision of the fee structure proposal.

As a non-member, but very interested by-stander, there are two aspects
of the current fee structure (and the latest proposal) which I find
rather strange.

NIRs & Their Fees
-----------------

I find it odd that the NIRs pay any fees to APNIC at all (over and above
a standard affiliation fee, that is). I always thought that the NIRs
provide a *value added service* to the Local Internet Registries they
serve (national language, national policy meetings, etc) - that's
certainly the marketing that all the NIRs actively engage in.

I'd like to suggest that, moving forwards, all members of NIRs pay the
same fees as direct LIRs of APNIC. NIRs can then also charge their
members for the value add services the NIRs provide. The NIRs then have
to pay *nothing* to APNIC. The advantage of this is that the NIRs can
manage their budgets very easily - they don't have address size
dependent fees to pay to APNIC at random junctures throughout the year.

I've no idea how many members each NIR has, so I'm not in any position
to rework the numbers in your document. But I'd be really interested to
see what the numbers would look like. I believe this would be a major
solution to the endless debate back and forth between NIRs and APNIC's
LIR members.

Charging per size of address space
----------------------------------

I've always understood that the RIRs charge an administration fee for
managing IP address space. This sounds like a service to me. Charging
fees based on size of allocation sounds less like a service and is more
like being akin to selling address space. Does it really cost APNIC
twice as much to administer a /20 compared with administering a /22? My
bank doesn't charge me banking fees based on my account balance - they
charge me for services they provide.

(FWIW, I've heard many ISPs throughout the region resort to NATs and all
the brokenness they bring simply to avoid having to go into the next
pricing band - which is a major barrier to growth in the less developed
or developing parts of the Internet.)

For the benefit of the working group, and future APNIC public meeting
discussion, can the Secretariat maybe indicate what incremental work
needs to be done to administer increasing sizes of address blocks?

My guess would be that the assignment window would introduce admin
overhead. But as ISPs get more experienced their assignment windows
would get larger, thereby reducing the admin overhead?

How would a service based charging system work?
- charging for the work required to assess an allocation; the bigger the
allocation, the more work for the secretariat, the higher the fee
- charging for handling assignment windows, per 10s of requests, for example
- annual fixed resource management charge (bit like the annual credit
card fee perhaps, and is not dependent on your credit limit)
- charging for contacting secretariat, over and above a minimum per year
(same as banks here in Oz give you 25 free ATM transactions per month,
and thereafter you start paying per transaction)
- charging for reverse DNS
- etc etc for all other APNIC services provided for LIR benefit

Therefore, the LIRs who actually use the services pay for them, and we
keep the fees completely divorced from the size of allocation. Which I
believe is important if we are trying to squash the myth that IP address
space is bought and sold.

Can the Secretariat maybe give us an idea of the costs involved in
managing an LIR on an annual basis? For different sizes of resources
that LIR has?


philip
--

Paul Wilson said the following on 13/12/06 15:10:
> Dear all,
> 
> Please find attached a revision to the earlier fee structure proposal. 
> The changes from previous versions include the following:
> 
> - updated membership and allocation figures (to 1 November 2006);
> - selection of an initial fee level which produces no change
>  in expected revenues;
> - a proposed series of questions for a future membership vote.
> 
> Please note that this is a personal proposal from myself as APNIC DG. 
> The APNIC EC has reviewed this document and is considering the next
> steps which are appropriate.
> 
> I look forward to your feedback on this important issue.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Paul Wilson                                 email:     pwilson@apnic.net
> Director General, APNIC                     sip:    apnic@voip.apnic.net
> http://www.apnic.net                        phone:       +61 7 3858 3100
> 
> 
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