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RIPE NCC Membership Survey 2008

Introduction

The RIPE NCC commissioned an independent third party, TNS NIPO, to conduct a survey of the RIPE NCC membership. The fieldwork was carried out from 17 September - 25 November 2008. RIPE NCC members were invited via email to participate in this survey.

771 members completed the survey. This compares very favourably with the 285 members who completed the Membership Survey 2002 and the 279 members who completed the Membership Survey 2005.

The survey asked questions relating to overall satisfaction with the services offered by the RIPE NCC and feedback on the individual services provided. Members were given the option to make individual comments and suggestions for improvements.

Participation by Country

Members from nearly all countries in the RIPE NCC's service region participated in the survey. Of those who participated, 16% came from Germany and 10% came from both Italy and the Netherlands. The full list of the countries that participated is given in the report from TNS NIPO. The list of the top ten participating countries with numbers of responses is:

Country No. %

Germany

122

16%

Italy

79

10%

Netherlands

74

10%

Switzerland

44

6%

France

29

4%

Spain

29

4%

Czech Republic

27

4%

Austria

23

3%

Finland

22

3%

United Kingdom

21

3%

Participation by Industry/Profession

A broad rage of professions took part in the survey, with the most common being network engineers, who accounted for 63% of responses. We also saw a 12% response from board and management, 2% from the government/regulatory area and 2% from the research industry. More figures and analysis are available in the full report from TNS NIPO.

Ranking RIPE NCC Services

The survey asked RIPE NCC members to rank its services from least to most important. There was a correlation between how often services were used and how important they were deemed to be. Registration Services were used by 77% of respondents and Database Services were used by 75% of respondents. The eight services were ranked from least important (1) to most important (8). The average results are given below:

RIPE Database Services

7

Registration Services

6.6

DNS Services

5.2

Information Services

4.4

Training Services

4

Billing or Administration Support Services

3.5

Communications or Outreach Activities

2.8

Meeting Support

2.5

Customer Services

For most services a scale of 1 to 7 was used, where 1 represented strongly disagree and 7 represented strongly agree. The average score for RIPE NCC Customer Services in 2008 was 5.7, which is a minor improvement on the 2005 score of 5.6. Overall, members were satisfied with the customer service offered by the RIPE NCC, although there were a number of comments asking that it be easier to make direct contact with RIPE NCC staff to resolve issues quickly.

RIPE Database Services

Members considered RIPE Database services to be very good, with average scores ranging from 5.7 to 6.0. The high satisfaction level with RIPE Database Services meant that only 5% of respondents gave suggestions for improvements, with the most common of these being a request for a more user-friendly interface.

Registration Services

Satisfaction with Registration Services was high and 8% of respondents gave suggestions for improvement. The most common suggestion was to improve the clarity of the documentation relating to Registration Services by providing real-life examples and making "how to" guides.

DNS Services

DNS Services received a very high satisfaction rating with an average score of 6.1 out of 7. The main suggestion for improvement was to have more complete documentation on DNS Services.

Information Services

Members gave very high satisfaction ratings for the RIPE NCC's Information Services. They believe in general that the data presented by the RIPE NCC is useful and reliable, and also that is it useful to publish analyses about network events such as DDoS attacks. Members provided more comments on the Information Services section than any other area. The most common request from members in this area was for a breakdown of allocation statistics of IP address (available space, growth, vacancy, per country/region allocation).

Training Services

Training Services were used by 26% of members in the year prior to the survey. There was a marked improvement in satisfaction levels from 2005 to 2008 - a jump in the average satisfaction score from 5.4 to 5.9. The training course most requested by members was an IPv6 training course (85% of respondents), followed by a training course on routing/information services (59% of respondents). It was also suggested that more local training courses should be offered and that the E-learning Centre should be expanded.

Billing or Administration Support Services

Billing and support services were generally rated as very good, although some members felt that the fees do not appropriately reflect the services they receive from the RIPE NCC. The most common requests from members were to be provided with historical billing information via the LIR Portal and to receive an automatic payment confirmation.

Communications and Outreach

Most respondents in this section felt that the RIPE NCC provides high-quality documentation and keeps its membership well informed of its activities. Of the suggestions for improving communications and outreach activities, it was suggested that there be less hard copy documentation and that announcements be targeted to specific groups that require information by email.

Meeting Support

More than half the respondents to the survey felt that they would attend a RIPE Meeting in the future. The respondents who attended a RIPE Meeting in the year prior to the survey were very satisfied with the experience. The main comments on this section were to request events closer to members and to reduce the costs that are passed on to members.

Conclusion

It can be concluded from the average scores for each area that RIPE NCC members are very satisfied with the products and level of service offered by the RIPE NCC. Technological services are considered most important and these areas received the most comments and suggestions for improvements or new services. From the individual feedback, members appear to want faster and more user-friendly services in relation to all products and services.