[members-discuss] Charging scheme discussion

On 26/07/2012 19:34, Sascha Luck wrote:
> The original 2012 proposal wasn't so bad actually, it just had a few
> ugly warts which is why I and a lot of others rejected it.

I like the current charging scheme task force recommendations. Overall,
they are pretty sensible, with the exception of the legacy address holders
situation which I don't agree with as a unilateral position (but which I
would agree with if the legacy holders are ok about it).

However re: the board proposal for the 2013 charging scheme, I'm still
concerned about:

1.  the self selection categorisation, which is pretty non deterministic
and which I believe will lead to all members ending up paying the same
amount.  This will end up being directly against the recommendations of the
task force for several reasons (no differentiation in membership fees based
on "size", unstable fees, charging based on service portfolio, charging
based on internet number resources), and

2. (much the lesser issue because it has limited time scope) the default
policy of lumping all the existing small members into medium which, will
have the effect of causing a member which starts off as extra small any
time between 2002 and 2011 and who registers the smallest amount of address
space possible (i.e. a /21) to be bumped up to small in the year after
registration and medium in 2013.

/21 is not in general a medium sized LIR, no matter what way you look at
it. The current minimum allocation is /21, and by policy you currently
cannot get less.  So even if there is a problem with the existing charging
scheme, it is compounded significantly by the proposed new one, even if
only for a single year.  The only way you can have a /21 and get charged as
extra small is if the /21 was registered more than 10 years ago.

So, this is a failure of the current scheme.  Please don't compound it with
the new one.  Fix it instead.

Although it affects my company's LIR in exactly this fashion, there is a
large number of other LIRs in exactly the same position.  Because this
exact problem affects ~2.5k LIRs, the proposal does not strike me as being
a balanced charging policy and in its current form, I will be voting
against it.

I like the principles put forward in the task force report about
differentiation in membership fees and having these fees based on size
categories.  As a member, I'm not happy that the new budget proposal has
built without these principles at their core.

I understand that my position does not take ipv6 resource usage into
account, and that the default size of /32 will cover most LIR requirements
for their entire lifetimes.  However, I'd also take the points of view that
a) the RIPE NCC is not yet ready to charge based primarily on ipv6 usage
and b) charging for ipv4 registration is still actually relevant.

Nick