[address-policy-wg] IPv4 waiting list policy

denis walker wrote on 08/12/2021 19:35:
> Since it's formation the RIPE NCC has been in the address rental
> market. This is what it always has and continues to do.

The LIR fee is an association membership fee, and the RIPE NCC has taken 
pains over the years to emphasise that the membership fee is not linked 
directly to address allocation quantities, because that could be 
construed to be a quid-pro-quo services arrangement.

Prohibiting transfers will cause the RIPE NCC to move towards a model of 
intrinsically linking the registration fee to a specific quantity of 
resources.  This is because there is a fixed annual fee, and the 
quantity of address space is fixed if the end user acquires holdership 
of more than one of these /24s. I.e. if an end user has one of these 
/24s, they can rationalise costs by moving any existing ip address 
allocations into the /24 LIR, but if they have two or more of these 
/24s, then there is no cost advantage to doing this.

If the effective rental fee is higher than market rates, then there's no 
value to startup end users.  If it's lower, then the RIPE NCC is 
competing with existing market operators and potentially distorting the 
market, but with an effective competitive advantage in terms of having a 
monopoly on being able to reclaim unused ip address space from former 
LIRs.  This would be an awkward position for the RIPE NCC to put itself 
into.

I sympathise with what you're trying to achieve here: you want to design 
a policy mechanism which prioritises new entrants who need IPv4 
resources so that legitimate new businesses can operate successfullt. 
Problem is, none of the mechanisms that have been proposed so far on 
apwg are going to work, or else they are likely to have unexpected and 
potentially serious downstream consequences.

Nick