[members-discuss] Input from Membership on RIPE NCC Charging Scheme Model

Not seeking to deliberately add complication, but trying to address the issue of scarce IPv4 resources, should unused IPv4 resources cost more than ones in use? 
The concern of smaller LIR's (and the cause of much RIPE workload) is the administration and effort in administering new space (and all methods associated thereto), and this effort would be reduced if larger LIR's with unused space returned it (which they would never willingly do). 

If space is in use, it probably represents market success and good luck to those LIR's, but unused space is a market distortion caused by sub-optimal RIPE planning in the past, and correcting this could reduce everyone's costs and create a more orderly market too.

Small and new LIR's (by definition) probably grow more (in RIPE resource terms) than large and old ones, so some sort of transaction fee for acquirers (compensating divestors) would be appropriate. Or better still why not have all space "rented" so there is less commercial advantage to hoarding?

-----Original Message-----
From: members-discuss [mailto:members-discuss-bounces at ripe.net] On Behalf Of Radu-Adrian Feurdean
Sent: 15 September 2016 22:40
To: Gert Doering <gert at space.net>
Cc: members-discuss at ripe.net
Subject: Re: [members-discuss] Input from Membership on RIPE NCC Charging Scheme Model

On Thu, Sep 15, 2016, at 14:06, Gert Doering wrote:

> But that's not actually true.  A LIR that just humms along, never 
> sending any request for resources, never opening a ticket will cause 
> nearly no cost - while a LIR that sends in a question every 5 days 
> will cause quite a bit of cost.  Independent of the number of resources they have.
> 
> Back in the day, a "large LIR" would inevitably send in more requests 
> than a "small LIR" - but since nobody can get extra resources after 
> their last /22, this is no longer true.
> 
> So, if *cost* is the concern, "startup LIRs that request their first /22"
> are actually the ones that need most (human) resources, not "old LIRs 
> that have all they will ever get, and never ask for more".  Looking at 
> the training department, who do you think will need more training?  
> Old and experienced LIRs, or startups?
> 
> Database costs, housing, electricity are mostly the same, no matter 
> how many resources a LIR has.

Gert,

While human cost is important (56% of total), it's not the only cost. A big old LIR having a /11 (or similar) that fills the DB with 100K objects (growing at 10 per week) does generate some indirect work (including FTEs), much more than an new LIR that will rarely have more than 50 objects.

... And while the service fee accounts for most of the revenue - 77.5%, set-up fees account for other 19% of revenue and are supposed to cover typical use of a new member (checks, exchanging documents, allocating 1 x IPv4, 1 x IPv6 and 1 x ASN - procedures largely simplified recently, and not to forget 2 free RIPE meeting tickets that I'm not sure so many members use).

I would like to have some information of the workload required in order to perform transfers (price = ZERO) and M&A (or what's left of it) which costs (the LIRs concerned) between (almost) zero and 3/4 of the yearly fee (depending on the quarter it has been performed in).

And then there's the issue of non-voting members. Not the ones that have less than 6 months at the GM, but those that are "multiple LIRs per organisation". While some legal requirements are involved, one may easily think about "taxation without representation".

And sorry to bring this here, but with a policy proposal in the discussion phase (2016-03) that aims (among other things) to add some form of segregation between LIRs based on what they can do with resources received from RIPE NCC, differentiated service fees starts making more sense.

Besides, RIPE NCC had differentiated service fees in some form or another for about 20 years (until 2012). Since then (barely 4 years) membership count increased by more than 50%; voting members count should not be far from that.

--
Radu-Adrian FEURDEAN

----
If you don't want to receive emails from the RIPE NCC members-discuss mailing list, please log in to your LIR Portal account and go to the general page:
https://lirportal.ripe.net/general/

Click on "Edit my LIR details", under "Subscribed Mailing Lists". From here, you can add or remove addresses.