[members-discuss] RIPE NCC Charging Scheme 2020 - Board Reasoning

Le 2019-04-23 15:45, Sebastian Wiesinger a écrit :
> * Arnaud BRAND <arnaud.brand--ripencc at tib.cc> [2019-04-23 15:08]:
>> I agree with you that almost all our benefits/margins come from the
>> bandwidth part of the service.
>> In fact I think the "renting" fees we bill for IPv4 addresses do not 
>> even
>> pay for our RIPE membership.
>> 
>> They're just there so customers don't ask for 100IP each.
>> So, no we do not make any money from renting IPv4 addresses neither.
> 
> So why do you say in your first mail that "LIR's incomes derive
> primarily from the amount of IPv4 space they can rent to their
> customers"? You now say that the amount your customer pays does not
> even cover the RIPE membership.

It was written just under the previous statement :
>> 
>> But it is also quite clear that the more IPv4 addresses you have, the 
>> more
>> customers you can serve and the more money you can make on the 
>> services
>> provided via these IPv4 addresses.

The fact that it doesn't cover mmebership fees *for us* doesn't mean 
that we don't provide/sell services via these IPv4 ranges, the benefit 
of which is obviously greater than our fees.
Otherwise we would be out of business.

>> So it seems like a good index on which to base LIR fees, doesn't it ?
>> That was my point/way of thinking.
> 
> To be honest, no. It is not a good index. If your business growth
> depends on availability of IPv4 addresses it will fail. What exactly
> is the point on basing the fees on IPv4 blocks now? What is the goal
> this would achieve? IPv4 is over. People are fighting for scraps
> instead of thinking of solutions (like moving to IPv6).

As several networks still do not use IPv6, even as we do deploy IPv6, we 
still depend on IPv4 reachability for the next 5 to 10 years, maybe 
more.
I hope that our business will grow in this timeframe. So for us, IPv4 is 
not over.
And 5 to 10 years is a long time (a lot of small businesses don't even 
last this long) that's exactly why few people move to IPv6.

And if IPv4 were useless market transfers wouldn't exist anymore and all 
of this debate wouldn't have taken place on the list.

> 
> Yes you can rent IPv4 space to your customers and if you need more
> space you can get it at the transfer market.

Market transfer are one-shot fees, not recurring costs.
And as IPv4 prices still rise, IPv4 are regarded as an asset in which 
you can invest and on which you can speculate.
Plus for this kind of asset you have (almost?) no maintenance costs, and 
it doesn't wear or degrade.
I guess several big companies are waiting just to close a deal like GE 
did last year.
With public resources that where given to them free of charge.

> The price should then be
> reflected in the price your customer pays.

No real need to do that if you are wealthy enough and don't need the 
money right now : you can resell the IPv4 space later, so this is just 
an investment.
Or you can bill your customers so that it's paid for in, say, 3 years ? 
And when you retire, or need money, or feel like it's time to sell, then 
you resell it, probably with a nice benefit.
I don't think it would work the same with a recurring RIPE cost on IPv4 
space.

> You could also use IPv6 and
> DS-Lite and cut the costs. But IPv4 will not magically turn up when
> you change the RIPE NCC charging scheme.

Hopefully not.
I'm not in favor of having more IPv4 to give away to pseudo-new LIRs :
- it hinders migration to IPv6, which I actually am a fan of.
- like Jens said, it allows people to abuse the system and make money 
out of it.

It was also written in my initial email, if you would care to reread it.
This IPv4-return risk was identified as one of the drawbacks of my 
proposal.

Again, I was merely expressing my opinion about a scheme that seemed to 
be fairer that what was proposed.

Billing on number of ressources held in the database is a bad idea.
Even now most LIR don't fill the data about their customer's 
allocations, which is quite anoying (I though this was mandatory, or am 
I mistaken ?)
Do you think there will be much left in the DB once you have to pay for 
each and every record ?
Would you care to create records if you knew that next year may be they 
will get charged and you will wipe them off ?
Don't we all want to have quality data in the DB ?
Otherwise, what's the point of having it and paying for it ?

> 
>> And I proposed very low fees (€0.01 per /24 per year) which should not 
>> have
>> any impact on the financial stability of our fellow LIRs.
>> Even those sitting on these public resources like anti-competitive
>> speculators.
>> So, why not ?
> 
> If it has no impact what exactly is the goal of this then?

I also suggested to increase these fees over time.
But with a clear plan/path so that noone gets "surprised" or suddenly 
financialy endangered by a brutal change.

I think going to volume based billing is the right move, but you have to 
do that gradually and choose "indexes" carefully.

Lowering entry barriers for small companies would be nice too, if you 
look at the income discrepancies between eastern and western europe, 
which have surfaced quite a few times on this list.

Pushing towards IPv6 by introducing recurring costs for IPv4 would 
certainly also benefit all.
Just like with our customers: setting even a small price for IPv4 makes 
them think twice about their real needs and if you provide them with a 
cheaper alternative, they'll look at it more closely.

> RIPE NCC is
> a membership organisation, not a shop for IPv4 space.

And not once has RIPE "sold" IPv4 space.
If you stop to pay your membership fees they get their IPs back.
Seen this way, are they not renting it to us ?
It's a membership organization, so why doesn't each and everyone of us 
pay the same price for what is rented to us ?
Why don't we even get the option to vote to do so ?

Like quite a lot of people already said, if the purpose is just to force 
our hand to vote for no change, what's the point ?

Best regards,
Arnaud