Re: 1996 Charging Scheme

[Daniel Karrenberg <]

  > poole@localhost (Simon Poole) writes:
  > 
  > Please define who should subscribe to the service. Are we talking about
  > the local IR's again? 

Of course. I see no other sensible way.

  > If yes, this again leads to the same problem we 
  > experienced this year in that the NCC is charging for something that
  > actually takes work -off- the NCC. 

Local IRs are the entities who directly generate most of the NCC work. 
The system of local IRs was consciously designed to take assignment work
off the NCC in order to avoid the growth problems now so evident in the
US.  On the other hand the NCC has to review big assignments and audit
the local IRs in order to guarantee a fair process.  Of course the NCC
also provides support for the local IRs.  This is a major activity of
the NCC directly associated with the registries.  If you think the local
IRs are a problem with the charging model, please amplify. 

NB: I expect that non-paying last-resort IRs will not exist anymore in
1996.

  > As Peter more or less pointed out, usage should be measured now and the
  > results published. How otherwise is the commitee supposed to come to
  > reasonable conclusions? 

We are not at that stage of detail in the discussion yet.  I also do not
think it is practical to develop charging schemes from raw data on this
list.  Rather I plan to propose concrete schemes with assotiated data
*and implementation costs*.  So I think it would be premature to enter
in a discussion about figures. 

Nonetheless most of the data you request is -or will be again-
available:

  > I would like to see at least:
  > 
  > 	- address block allocations per local IR and total

This is in the quarterlies and will be available again once we have 
enough resources to resume them.  At this point I plan to resume publishing
quarterlies at the end of the month.

  > 	- reassignments per local IR and total 

Will probably be in the quarterlies.

  > 	- time spent working on requests per local IR and total

This is impossible to measure at the moment because the overheads are
prohibitive.  We simply do not have time for it.  We barely cope with
the load.  The cost of setting up a proper billing scheme with different
levels of service was already much higher than expected.  Keeping
meaningful records of time spent will be a significant overhead.
Using it for charging will probably be more expensive. 
We are currently starting to implement a new request tracking system
which will provide some data. This will take time.
I will certainly look seriously into that possibility but it will not
be before the middle of the year that we have useful data.

  > 	- Ripe database usage on a per domain/address base

What do you mean? Queries? Updates?

  > Second point: before we embark on this voyage, do we have any idea what
  > size budget you will be proposing next year? Roughly the same size? 
  > Twice the size? ...

I will propose an expenditure budget for 1996 in due time (before July)
together with the (hopefully few) charging schemes for consideration of
the contributors committee.  The expenditure budget will to some degree
depend on the cost of implementing the charging scheme.  It will also
depend on general developments in the Internet.  If you had asked me to
produce the 1995 budget in March 1994 it would have been less than
useful.  We all know that the environment is not very predictable. 
Having said that I'll venture to say that it will probably be higher
than 1995 and not more than twice the size of 1995. 

Daniel