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

Good afternoon, my fellow members!



I represent Hostmaster LLC, a Ukrainian domain registry. We are operating in Ukraine and abroad, using dedicated servers to support our infrastructure. We are 21 years old. Back in 2001, we self-funded our operations, and never took a loan or donation.  Resource-wise, we have got our /21 PA, our pre-runout /21, two /24 PI of 20th century style IP blocks (those were our start-up resources), and /48 and /32 of contemporary century IP, plus two AS numbers; we also sponsor a couple of small projects with their small allocations.



Both proposed schemes would raise our fees, to exactly the same 2200 EUR.  While we can afford them I cannot consider our organization large.  Since the latest escalation of the bloody war by the russian federation in 2022 we have had to double our network footprint to be disaster-proof. We aren't making more money either as currency had lost 25% to the euro. We had to spend some money on generator fuel for our office and high-capacity batteries for staff and to shut down equipment in cities under enemy fire. 



I can imagine many Ukrainian ISPs, hosting, and cloud providers in a similar situation, or a company in Turkey can be similarly affected by currency depreciation. 



Speaking of the second option, consider an idea of a "variable" ipv4 charge to be impossible to implement correctly.  With a cap we are giving an advantage to large organizations; without it, we may risk some of them going to migrate to other RIRs thus significantly impacting NCC revenue. We had decided this once; we seek ipv6 adoption making everyone request appropriate block at once; what going back in time is going to do? If we are so concerned about merging extra LIR accounts we can make it cost more. 



I propose to vote no on both options, thus keeping the current flat fee while adjusting it as the economic situation changes.



I am also specifically against:

 1. including sponsored resources into category sizing while charging for them by their count, as it is double dipping into member pockets; 
 2. charging for AS number, own or sponsored, as those are plentiful;
 3. making use of IPv6 charging categories, for the next decade, as we are still dealing with dual stack world. ARIN made the mistake of charging more for dual-stack members, thus discouraging IPv6 adoption; they later "fixed" it by allowing cheaper /36 allocations;
 4. making any fees for changing a sponsor (I am thinking of everything a fee can be added to, possibly.)


Looking at the proposed budget of 40 million euros and way over twenty thousand LIR accounts (forecasting a 10% drop of them due to mergers and some reserve for non-paying members) an equal member fee would be under 2000€. The vast reserves of NCC should allow for softening the blow of the economic downturn, and dozens of proposed cost-cutting measures (staff headcount, office location, travel, donations to external parties, free member events, and others.)



I also see a meeting fee is up 14% already.

assuming some people only get reimbursed after the trip happens, and a lot of attendees not paying their bill two months earlier.



May I suggest an NCC tip field instead on the annual invoice: this would allow members who feel they benefit a lot but pay too little to contribute more but on their own will.


On a serious note I would like us all to come to agreement on a formula that is just and fair.  Judging on amount of critique on the list, we do not have this, yet. 

-- dk at hostmaster.ua 
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