[members-discuss] [ncc-announce] [GM] Consultation on RIPE NCC Charging Scheme 2024

Hi,

the RIPE NCC budget has increased yearly for the past 10+ years. A
non-for-profit registry that could operate with less than €20mil ten years
ago needs more than twice the amount of money ten years later. Something
has gone wrong if the organization spends twice as much money to offer
similar services (sometimes of a poorer quality) to its members.

Most of the members NEED to pay a membership fee to the RIPE NCC because
they can not get the registration services anywhere else. The
non-for-proffit organization called the RIPE NCC is a monopoly that now
spends €40m a year. So, today members are forced by the NCC to choose from
a bad charging scheme and an even worse one. They will pay more yearly
regardless of whether they need more or less services from the NCC.

I really believe a better accountability on what the NCC is planning to
spend €40mil/year is needed before we vote on new charging schemes or price
increases.

FYI, I looked at the budget the NCC had over the past 10+ years, collected
the number of FTEs and the CAPEX:

2012, ripe-544: 129 FTEs, 19,16 mEUR
2013, ripe-558: 135 FTEs, 18,5 mEUR
2014, ripe-598: 136 FTEs, 20,8 mEUR
2015, ripe-630: 136.1 FTEs, 20,66 mEUR
2016, ripe-662: 141 FTEs, 22,32 mEUR
2017, ripe-671: 148.5 FTEs, 25,11 mEUR
2018, ripe-693: 155.2 FTEs, 26,89 mEUR
2019, ripe-711: 165.1 FTEs, 31,60 mEUR
2020, ripe-735: 165.1 FTEs, 34,44 mEUR
2021, ripe-750: 170 FTEs, 33,56 mEUR
2022, ripe-773: 186 FTEs, 35,60 mEUR
2023, ripe-786: 190.6 FTEs, 40,00 mEUR

Something happened in 2016-2017 that caused the NCC to increase the amount
of money they need, dramatically. And since then, as no one seemed to make
enough noise, the NCC and the Board kept increasing the budget until we got
to this amount… €40mil.   So, the budget doubled in 2023 when compared to
2015, I wonder why...

At every RIPE Meeting there’s at least one person asking the NCC to find a
way to spend less, and then the NCC and the Board ignore all that ‘noise’.
Why a registry of IP addresses and AS Numbers needs to spend 40 million EUR
per year is beyond my comprehension. Why the NCC needs 200 FTEs in 2023
when they were doing just fine (or even better) doing a similar job in 2013
with just 135 is also unknown.

I’d suggest to the MD, the CFO and the Board to go back to the drawing
board and figure out why the budget keeps going up. The services offered
(those that 99% of the membership care for) are less and less (no one can
get IPv4 anymore, they ask for an IPv6 allocation and an ASN and never come
back to bother the NCC again… the price paid for membership should go down
and not up.

I understand and agree that staff’s salaries should be increased because of
the galloping inflation. What I do not understand is why the budget
increased from €20m to €40m in less than 10 years… there must have been
other reasons too.

I reject both charging scheme proposals.

my 2 cents,
Elvis


On Mon, Mar 13, 2023 at 02:02 Sander Steffann <sander at steffann.nl> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> > On a side note, I also feel that the RIPE NCC’s budget is getting a bit
> out of control. RIPE NCC is primarily an Internet Registry, and I would
> like to see focus concentrating on Registration Services, and less on
> anything else. I understand that the RIPE NCC is in a useful position to do
> nice research projects, represent the internet community etc. But looking
> at the budget it looks like the rest of the organisation is growing much
> faster than the registry function. I therefore also object to the €450
> price increase in model 1.
>
> I had a chat with Hans Petter the other day, and he informed me that a
> significant part of the budget increase is caused by increasing staff
> salaries. Considering the recent inflation and economic circumstances I
> fully approve that. So if the fee increase is used to improve working
> conditions for RIPE NCC Staff, which are an important part of our
> community, I am perfectly fine with that!
>
> Cheers,
> Sander
>
>
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