[members-discuss] GM topic

Hi!

> When I see the RIPE invoices arrive every year, I always ask the same
> question: Why do I have to pay for a service I never use?

The founders of RIPE had (approx. 30 years ago) in mind what would
happen if the ISP community would not self-organise the IP
address/number management. (I followed those discussions at that
time via email lists etc).

It was a very wise and forward-looking decision to have it
structured like it is structured right now.

Compare RIPE/IETF/etc with ITU and specs from the telco world.

Compare RIPE/IETF/etc with the way mobile frequencies are
managed.

One scenario was to have the governments handle the numbers management.
We can be sure it would much more expensive (fee structure) and slower and
would still cost the ISP much more money to apply for resources.

One scenario was that the big TelCos would start a sort of club
and sort it out between themselves. No small niche players/startups
would have been possible. Endless lawsuits between the big TelCos and
the competition authorities and the different countries, trying
to eek out bizarre thousand-page thick rulebooks with endless
exceptions.

One scenario was that basically the US government would decide
all of that.

*Those* were some of the possible futures at that time.
We would live in a different internet world nowadays, the innovation
and cost curve would look much different and most of the LIRs today would
not exist at all.

It will not be easy to find a solution for our time/structure today,
but we should invest the time we have thanks to the RIPE financial
reserves to really dig into short-, mid- and long-term scenarios
with a much wider view of the possible futures.

That's why keeping the fee structure the same for the time being
and use our discussion bandwidth to look at the broader view is
a sensible way out.

(speaking for 2 LIRs, with a bit of history in mind)

-- 
MfG/Best regards, Kurt Jaeger                                Now what ?
Dr.-Ing. Nepustil & Co. GmbH  fon +49 7123 93006-0  pi at nepustil.net
Rathausstr. 3                 mob +49 171 3101372
72658 Bempflingen