4 ms·

At the General Meeting in November, RIPE proposed some substantial changes to the charging scheme, to be implemented from 2023 (1 year away), and one notable di

At the General Meeting in November, RIPE proposed some substantial changes to the charging scheme, to be implemented from 2023 (1 year away), and one notable difference is that RIPE is considering charging a fair market value for IPv4 assignments, in addition, to set up and maintenance fees. That is the cause of the current spike/backlog.

wmf 5y ago
But since IPv4 has run out there won't be any new assignments?
- tialaramex 5y ago
  On the contrary, assignments continue. Suppose Alice wants to sell a /16 to Bob. The mechanism goes like this: Bob agrees to pay Alice $5 for this address block, Bob writes up paperwork saying why Bob needs a /16, and sends it to RIPE. Alice sends RIPE paperwork saying she doesn't need this /16 any more, and has agreed a deal to sell it to Bob. RIPE checks the paperwork matches, and transfers this /16 from Alice to Bob. They can charge whatever they choose for this, RIPE's members are the LIRs who are paying those fees (including Alice and Bob), so they're effectively agreeing among themselves how to pay for the existence of the RIR. However, this entry is about the Waiting List, which is for a steady trickle of small blocks (one /24 each) just to get new members started. The idea is, you need a few IPv4 addresses for say, the new Spanish ISP you started, even if it's mostly an IPv6 ISP, so here is a small block for that purpose.
  - wmf 5y ago
    I understand how transfers work, but is RIPE really planning to charge $50 per IP or more for transfers? What would they even do with the resulting billions in revenue?
    - tialaramex 5y ago
      Currently RIPE costs maybe €35M per year to run and does maybe 5000 transfers per year. So, not billions of dollars. The exact scheme has not been determined, the proposal sketched was that a /24 would cost maybe €5000 in 2023. Maybe they do 4000 of those, that's €20M. The rationale is, industry consolidation means that per-LIR fees either need to increase substantially over the next decade (unfriendly to small members, forcing further consolidation) or a new fee mechanism is needed. Understandably members who scarcely need RIPE services because they have a perfectly nice IPv6 block are frustrated to see that members paying the same annual fee incur significant staff time (meaning more FTE cost) because their stupid IPv4 renumbering changes mean paperwork. So, why not make that cost money?

wmf 5y ago

But since IPv4 has run out there won't be any new assignments?

tialaramex 5y ago
On the contrary, assignments continue. Suppose Alice wants to sell a /16 to Bob. The mechanism goes like this: Bob agrees to pay Alice $5 for this address block, Bob writes up paperwork saying why Bob needs a /16, and sends it to RIPE. Alice sends RIPE paperwork saying she doesn't need this /16 any more, and has agreed a deal to sell it to Bob. RIPE checks the paperwork matches, and transfers this /16 from Alice to Bob. They can charge whatever they choose for this, RIPE's members are the LIRs who are paying those fees (including Alice and Bob), so they're effectively agreeing among themselves how to pay for the existence of the RIR. However, this entry is about the Waiting List, which is for a steady trickle of small blocks (one /24 each) just to get new members started. The idea is, you need a few IPv4 addresses for say, the new Spanish ISP you started, even if it's mostly an IPv6 ISP, so here is a small block for that purpose.
- wmf 5y ago
  I understand how transfers work, but is RIPE really planning to charge $50 per IP or more for transfers? What would they even do with the resulting billions in revenue?
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    Currently RIPE costs maybe €35M per year to run and does maybe 5000 transfers per year. So, not billions of dollars. The exact scheme has not been determined, the proposal sketched was that a /24 would cost maybe €5000 in 2023. Maybe they do 4000 of those, that's €20M. The rationale is, industry consolidation means that per-LIR fees either need to increase substantially over the next decade (unfriendly to small members, forcing further consolidation) or a new fee mechanism is needed. Understandably members who scarcely need RIPE services because they have a perfectly nice IPv6 block are frustrated to see that members paying the same annual fee incur significant staff time (meaning more FTE cost) because their stupid IPv4 renumbering changes mean paperwork. So, why not make that cost money?