Hi Michal,
I believe I am not the only one who would like to understand: • Why do the fees so fundamentally fail to reflect the amount of resources held? (Compare, for example, with ARIN: https://www.arin.net/resources/fees/fee_schedule/)
Many RIPE NCC members are completely happy with a flat-fee model. They will vote for that model unless it disappears from the ballots. The redistribution leaves people confused and worried because the amounts vary each year. -- Best regards, Sergey Myasoedov
On 2/4/2026, at 22:13, Michal Krajčírovič via members-discuss <members-discuss@ripe.net> wrote:
Dear Simon, I have a personal request for you: could you please, at least for a moment, drop the constant evasiveness, the avoidance of any responsibility, and the endless references to various task forces and working groups? You wrote an email that is a full page long and, in substance, says almost nothing beyond generic managerial phrases. The email you sent could easily be reduced to about three sentences. Yesterday I wrote a long email with a number of concrete questions. Clément wrote another long email with many rational and specific comments. You respond to none of that. Instead, you shield yourself behind unnamed working groups and vague statements. I believe I am not the only one who would like to understand: • Why do the fees so fundamentally fail to reflect the amount of resources held? (Compare, for example, with ARIN: https://www.arin.net/resources/fees/fee_schedule/) • Why should a small three-person ISP that becomes an LIR today pay the same as an entity that sells or leases IPv4 space it managed to accumulate (often in rather questionable ways) for millions of euros per year? Why should the largest operators in Europe, holding millions of IP addresses, pay the same as well? Does no one find this strange? (Especially given that others must buy IPv4 at ~€30 per IP just to have any at all.) • What are the concrete costs of onboarding a new LIR, and what exactly do they consist of? Why does this cost €1,000 — and why does the proposal even speak of €1,500 for a second account of the same company, which is already verified and registered? • What exactly does an LIR receive for the membership fee if not even a position on the IPv4 waiting list? Do you genuinely believe that processing a single registration (one contract) and charging €1,800 per year is an adequate price for an ASN and IPv6 resources — resources that are described as “infinite” and that, for RIPE, essentially amount to adding a row to a database? Please respond concretely, without managerial fluff and without endlessly deferring responsibility to others. You sign your emails as CFO. If you are not the person with an overview of these matters, then perhaps it would also be appropriate to address whether it would be possible to reduce RIPE’s roughly 200 employees to, say, 50 and lower the fees accordingly — because for maintaining IP transfer updates in a database, that would surely be sufficient. By the way, since we are talking so much about charging for PI resources (how exactly is maintaining PI in the registry more demanding than PA?) and about exorbitant fees for placement on the waiting list, wouldn’t it be time to carry out a thorough audit of all LIRs holding more than a /17 of IPv4 space? In many cases, no one really knows what kind of entities these are, or whether the addresses are being used in accordance with the originally approved addressing plans. I am genuinely appalled — a pile of nonsensical proposals and thousands of euros being thrown around in all directions.
Michal Krajcirovic
------ Původní zpráva ------ Od "Simon-Jan Haytink" <simonjh@ripe.net> Komu "Clement Cavadore" <ccavadore@vedege.net>; members-discuss@ripe.net Datum 04.02.2026 14:50:35 Předmět [members-discuss] Re: [ncc-announce] [News] Phase 2 of the Charging Scheme Model Consultation
Dear Clement, all,
Thanks for the useful feedback. I want to address some of your broader points, which I think will be useful for all members. I will also send a second mail that clarifies the reasoning we have behind some of the charges you mention.
On the RIPE NCC budget, this won’t be affected by the charging scheme model we arrive at. If there are new separate charges, this will not be on top of what we aim to bring in as income - it will just mean adjustment of charges in other areas such as the annual fee. Usually at this time of year we explain that the budget discussions happen around the Draft Activity Plan consultation in the Autumn, which we understand is frustrating. This year, we will be presenting the RIPE NCC Strategy 2027-2031, and we want to present a five-year budget to go with it so members can see what we plan to do and how we can finance those plans for the longer term. This means there can be a good discussion on the overall RIPE NCC budget and what it funds at the same time as the charging discussion. But for the purposes of this consultation, we first really do want to get input on a wide range of charging options.
On the list of charges we presented, we fully expect not to implement all of these, and those that we do could have very different levels of charges depending on member input. But it’s important to explain why we present these charges in the way we do.
The first group of charges are based on the principles coming from the Charging Scheme Task Force. The task force worked hard to come up with the principles, and our Executive Board committed to proposing charges based on those principles. The task force was explicitly asked to come up with principles rather than set amounts, so this is something we as the RIPE NCC needed to do because in the past members have told us they cannot comment on proposals unless they get an idea of how much the associated charges would be. So the figures we attach to these ideas are to help members with better understanding the implications of such charges for them. If they are too high, or even too low, then letting us know that can help us a lot before we finalise a proposal for members to vote on.
The second group of charges are presented because we do not want to leave ideas off the table. These ideas have been proposed by members several times over the years or we have considered internally to address recurring issues - giving discounts for specific groups of members, or incentivising changes to the membership model via the charging scheme. We ourselves see many issues with these ideas, and implementing them would be very difficult. But we want members to know that all ideas are there to be discussed. In the past we have been criticised for not considering alternative means of charging. So we are happy to hear strong opinions against those ideas you don’t like, and why, because this gives us precisely the kind of input we need to make a solid proposal.
We are serious when we say none of these charges or the associated numbers are set in stone. We are carrying this consultation out in good faith with the hope that members will guide us in the right direction. We are also conscious that making all members happy is not something we are likely to achieve so, in the absence of that, getting reasoned input on the ideas we put forward can at least help us to arrive at a model that makes good sense for the membership.
So, in summary, we are asking the membership if it does indeed want changes to the charging model. And, if so, what do those changes look like?
Kind regards, Simon-Jan Haytink Chief Financial Officer RIPE NCC
On 03/02/2026 16:00, Clement Cavadore wrote:
Dear Simon, all...
Excuse me, but... *whaaaat am I reading ?!?!*
Are you trying to shock your membership with some crazy options, in order to better have an acceptance on your category-based models ? Where has the fairness spirit gone ?
Here are my comments:
On group 1:
Regarding the new member signup fees: I honestly don't care wether it's 1000 or 1500€, but it should be the same, IMHO, be it an additionnal member or not.
IPv4 waiting list signup fees: Errr... why ? If you pay a membership signup fee, it should be enough. IPv4 allocation fee: Same comment. Then if you really think about billing stuffs as a waiting list and allocation fee, then, just bill all those fees as a sign-up fee, just don't play with words...
I am not opposed to merger and acquisition fee, as it's additionnal paperwork for NCC.
Transfer fee: on the two ends ? what's the deal ? Maybe in incoming, as it's paperwork based on the buyer's needs.
Legacy registry update fee: Why not, as they do not have any contractual relationship. I think that ARIN does not allow updates on out of contract relationships, do they ?
PI/ASN fees should not change IMHO.
On groupe 2:
PI fee at 1k€: ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND ?! So, having lets say two PI and an ASN (ex: non-commercial IXP, for example) would lead to ~2k€ fee? this is a nonsence....
Alternative registry fee update: 1.5k€ ? Well, legacy would just stay legacy, and the DB would remain outdated...
Discount for educationnal or lower income: Well, fairness is totally gone.
Please, reconsider your options. Nothing is acceptable there. You cannot continue that way. I have seen way better suggestions (for example ALexis Hanicotte's suggestion on 20th january), that your phase2 suggestions. Maybe you should reconsider your 40M budget aswell. You cannot just continue to raise your member's fee (while protecting big players). If you just think it might be at risk with higher members, maybe we should introduce a policy restraining inter-rir transfers for big inetnums (incoming or outgoing, lets still be fair).
Kind regards,
Clément Cavadore
On Mon, 2026-02-02 at 12:24 +0100, Simon-Jan Haytink wrote:
Dear RIPE NCC members,
Thank you for your feedback on Phase 1 of the charging scheme model.
During the six week consultation period, members shared feedback via the members-discuss mailing list and we also heard from members directly. Thank you to everyone who took part and helped inform the next stage of this work. We are now analysing the feedback to identify where the models can be refined.
*Phase 2: Separate Charges*
We are now launching Phase 2 of the consultation, which focuses on separate charges. In this phase, we are asking for feedback on two groups of additional charges:
Group 1: Charges based on task force recommendations Group 2: Possible other charges, discounts and incentives
You can find charges and detailed explanations of each charge at:
https://www.ripe.net/s/charging-scheme-model-consultation-phase-2/
Important: Please note that this is the consultation phase, and we are looking for your opinion on which charges make sense and would be acceptable for members. No charges or figures are set in stone - we need your input before we make a final draft charging scheme that we can bring to the Executive Board for its consideration in March. In parallel, we are carrying out impact analyses to determine what changes would need to be made to our systems in order to accommodate new types of charges, and whether they would be possible to implement for 2027 or need to be phased in over multiple years. We plan to publish the impact analysis when proposing the draft charging scheme for members to vote on in April.
Phase 2 will run until the week of 16 February 2026. Your input is essential for shaping the Charging Scheme proposal which will be presented to the membership for a vote at the May 2026 General Meeting.
Please share your comments, questions, and suggestions on the Members Discuss mailing list.
*Next Steps: Phase 3*
Following Phase 2, we will use feedback from both phases to revise the proposal before publishing a combined draft covering the annual membership fee and separate charges.
We are also developing an online calculator to accompany Phase 3, using the final draft model figures and the additional charges proposed during Phase 2.
We expect to publish both a complete charging scheme draft, an impact analysis and the calculator at the beginning of April 2026.
Kind regards,
Simon-Jan Haytink Chief Financial Officer RIPE NCC
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