[address-policy-wg] Direct End USer Assignments, 2007-01 and Contractual Requirements

Hello @All,

hopefully it's just an incapability of mine not to be able to get that topic into my head and understood... :-| ... because else I'd have to rant about this being accepted and implemented in a totally inconclusive and incomplete manner only useful for creating additional chaos. Not to take me wrong, in general I agree with putting in place some 'garbage collection' mechanism to return unused resources to the pool. 

What I was able to gather by digging through the archives, document store, google etc. was:

2007-01v4 has been accepted despite containing a bunch of topics left open. How's the 'sponsoring lir' defined ? Definition of fees left to NCC (what have been done by now, but I come back to that later). 'Contractual Requirements' left in some indefinite state (and without any discussion) as far as I can see.

The charging scheme has been adapted to reflect End User - RIPE NCC contracts and fees. Did someone read that and compared LIR to End User ?

The lowest fee - applicable for a single /24 already - equals to becoming a lir. What's the minimum allocation size today ? /21 ? 
Would you pay 1300 EUR p.a. to get a /24 when you can get a /21 by bcoming a lir for the same fees (which even provides much greater freedom, i.e. assignmnets allowed, partial transfer allowed) ? 

I think the only result of this will be PI/ASN fees turning into a mrket competition criteria. Anyone really going into the direct contract thing I expect to go for the /21-same-fee lir option. Won't this turn out to become an additional waste of addresses ?

What about the 'sponsoring lir' theme ? The 'Contractual Requirements for Provider Independent Resource Holders in the RIPE NCC Service Region' is a nice document. But that's the meaning of it ? All I see is a *draft* document trying to lay hands on the bussiness relationship between lir and end user. Getting a few additional scoring points in the billing algorithm I don't even think about. The member fee and the difference between categories isn't that expensive. (Before someone complains, those having a problem with the fees by stepping up a category due to issuing a sufficient amount of PI/ASN imho have a problem with their business plan and calculations.)

So, let's see:

I tell my (potential) customers to sign a contract with RIPE and pay thousends of EUR per year whilst another LIR is 'sponsoring' the PI. Bad idea - my boss won't like me forcing customers to contract another isp instead.

So, we'll go for 'sponsoring' mode and get the score. No problem so far.

Now, what's that 'Contractual Requirements' thing ? 
Even accepting the process including automatic return of resources to RIPE, how is RIPE going to verify the future existence ? Why should I be forced to charge a fee ? Do 'I have to forward that fee to RIPE's bank account ?

What about transfer of a PI or ASN?
When the customer decides to cancell contracts PI and ASN have to be transferred to the new lir so I get rid of the score (and more important administrative issues). In the past any transfer was charged for with an non-ignorable amount. Unfortunately I didn't find the document which fee applies here. In case the 'Administrative fee' - which has been nullified - is applied, everything is good at least here.

So, put together in a simple single question:

How the f*** are PI/ASN handled today and under which constraints ?


Hope anybody's able to enlighten me ...


Thanks in advance,

Marcus

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