while I don't want to join in flaming, I see some good reasons for people running a registry *now* for frowning at the financial procedures proposed or even applied unilaterally be some (only a very few?) Last Resort Registries.

I tend to agree with Wilfried. JANET originally offered to run the UK Last Resort registry because, as the national adademic & reserach network, we believed that it was in the interest of UK (and European) networking that someone undertook the job. We still feel this way, but it has to be said that its a lot of work, that it's not possible to justify to our funders that much effort is expended on this activity, and consequently that sometimes we find it difficult to provide the service level that we would like in terms of turnaround of requests, provision of advice etc. As things will get worse in this respect (as IP becomes more widespread), something will have to be done. Charging isn't necessarily bad -- it allows the service to be put on a proper, stable basis and most companies have no difficulty in understanding the concept of paying a small admin. fee for registration. However, I'd feel unhappy with unilateral action by individual registries -- there should be general agreement on the necessity. We'd probably give up running the UK Last Resort registry, rather than charge unilaterally, if it came to the point that we could no longer cope with current effort levels. So (although I didn't make the last RIPE IR group meeting, unfortunately) I'd support some serious discussion of this topic, to reach a consensus. One point I'd suggest though -- I don't believe it would be realistic to expect a uniform charge across Europe. As with everything else in life, costs will vary from country to country. One discussion point will be whether one wants the idea of free competition across Europe, with customers "shopping around" (the Maastricht ideal, I suppose), or a situation where customers aren't "allowed" to apply in other than their own country (ie regulation, or a cartel, depending on your view.) If the latter then there's an interesting consequence of what to do if a one country's Last Resort Registry starts charging unreasonably high prices ... this is a problem that hasn't been solved yet in the well known area of line provision! Could be an interesting discussion.... Bob Day