Hello,
One concern I have about the current 2007-01 draft is the lack of arguments opposing the proposal mentioned under the 'Rationale' section of the document. While many such arguments were raised and discussed extensively on this mailing list, the draft itself raises only one such argument and proceeds to immediately dismiss it.
In the current draft, some of the following objections may still be relevant to varying extent:
- Given the diversity of legal systems the RIPE NCC service region, the success of contractually binding existing resource holders to a new contract and fee is uncertain, and might be the beginning of a long and expensive exercise in futility.
- By attempting to levy a new fee on existing end users of directly assigned resources, RIPE NCC risks creating widespread dissent from these very same end users which had no voting right on this matter and were likely unaware of the proceedings of this WG; in the worst case scenario, this might result in end user utilizing resources regardless of their status in the WHOIS database.
To be honest, my intention to see 2007-01 put in action is to solve the imbalance imposed by the current billing scheme (PA has a recurring, for most networks not too small price tag attached, PI is basically free). Don't tell me PI is not PA because you cannot assign it to other endusers, there are dozens of ISPs that run entirely on PI. Another goal, I might be sticking something into a hornet's nest here, is to have a pricetag imposed on the only thing that costs money to all service-providers worldwide, and that is routingslots. I've heard from a lot of people who actually want this, but I don't see any technical sane way to achieve it. The closest thing are recurring fees for PI space. I know this doesn't handle deaggregation on it's own, but it's a start. Regarding the "new contract" thing. In my eyes, the cause with PIv4 is lost anyway. I want this for PIv6 from the start, and for new PIv4 assignments to be fair. If it is legally possible to push old resource holders into contracts with recurring fees, do it, if it isn't then don't. So basically what I would like to see is the following: - a recurring fee that is imposed to all PIv6 and new PIv4 assignments - the contract might be with a LIR or with RIPE, with substantial higher cost for dealing with RIPE directly - there will be _no_ scoring system (categories or whatever) that lowers the cost per assignment when a LIR/enduser is managing more of them. At Dec. 31st every PI assignment in contractual relation with RIPE NCC directly costs y EUR billed to the enduser, every PI assignment in contractual relation with a LIR costs x EUR (0 < x < y) billed to the LIR WITHOUT REBATE. The LIR can decide by itself how much it adds for handling the contract when billing it to the enduser. This should take care of the "Discount LIRs". - there should be some contract with existing PI holders. If there is consensus not to bill old assignments retroactively or if the legal advisors decide it's too risky, fine with me. Have a contract to track resources, but don't bill them. If however existing assignments are to be transferred the normal contract should be required. So basically, bill new resources, get a sensible approach with old resources and finally get PIv6 out of the door. I think 2007-01 v4.0 is the right tool to do this, and I want to see this soon. You may shoot now. Bernhard