- members-discuss - mailman.ripe.net

Charging Scheme 2011, additional information
by Axel Pawlik 07 Oct '11

07 Oct '11

Dear all, Thank you all for your valuable feedback and your patience. Please find below some more information and clarification on some of the issues being raised on this mailing list. - Charging scheme The proposed charging scheme for 2012 was drafted after discussion with the membership, as Nigel said earlier. We avoided making any radical changes to the charging scheme as the current tax ruling is favourable. The tax ruling will have to be reviewed if any major change is made. Changing the charging scheme in the way that many of you are suggesting (sliding scale or fees per allocation) will almost certainly lead to the RIPE NCC incurring a corporate tax liability of 25.5% on any surplus and, in the worst case, on the organisation's reserves. - Using IPv4 as an indicator of involvement in Internet operations As we were thinking about fairness in the Charging Scheme, it was clear that a simple scheme in which each member pays the same amount would not be meeting the fairness target, as members of large corporate size are likely to benefit from RIPE NCC services more than the small local ISP - the more and deeply a member is involved in the operations of the Internet, the more it is likely to benefit from our services. In looking for a yardstick to measure "Involvement in the oparations of the Internet", we proposed that IPv4 serve as the basis because it is a known factor. This is fully independent of the impending IPv4 runout, or its technical relevance. See also my mail from August at: http://www.ripe.net/maillists/ncc-archives/members-discuss/2011/msg00174.ht… - The RIPE NCC budget There have been many opinions expressed about the RIPE NCC's budget and I'd like to add some facts and reasoning to the discussion: The RIPE NCC's budget has varied over the years, decreasing after 2002 for a couple of years and then increasing again since then. The receent increase is due to a continually strong membership growth, an increase in outreach activities across our service region and defending the bottom-up, industry self regulation in response to newly interested stakeholders. Looking at the last 10 years, the average cost per member decreased by more than 7 % from 2001. Measuring against 2005, it has increased again by just over 3 %. - Webinars vs face-to-face training Face to face trainings are extremely valuable for us; we need to engage with you to gather important feedback and to disseminate information. Trainings are also very popular with members, as has been indicated in our membership surveys. Online training also has been offered on our E-learning centre for several years: http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/training/e-learning - Meeting costs There is no large financial benefit from holding meetings in the same city. Spreading meetings across the region is important as some of the community are unable to travel easily and value the occasional closer RIPE meeting. - Budget and personnel costs A large part of the RIPE NCC's budget has always been personnel costs - there's no change there. Even thought we are a not-for-profit organisation, we still need to compete with commercial organisations to ensure that we have competent and experienced staff. We can only do this by offering comparable salary and benefit packages. Over the last couple of years, we've implemented some organisational changes in order to streamline our activities and have focused on attracting high calibre staff to serve our members and the community and to promote and defend our interests in regional and global arenas. - RIR activities The RIPE NCC has its roots in the technical coordination and operation of the Internet. The task of Internet number resource distribution was added later. In addition, we perform many more activities for the RIPE community and for the general well-being of the Internet, including operating the K-root server, operation and maintenance of the RIPE Database and performing Internet measurements. All our activities are outlined in the RIPE NCC Activity Plan: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-506 We strive to gather input and feedback from our members and the RIPE community by regularly surveying the membership and various stakeholder groups. We also use feedback gathered from face-to-face contact during training courses and meetings and your opinions and suggestions are reflected in the activity plan. It is a challenge to strike a balance between continuity of operations and reacting to what our numerous stakeholder groups expect of us and from us - but we are continually listening to what you need. I'm sure you understand that we cannot implement every idea that you bring forward; however I do believe that both RIPE NCC staff as well as the Executive Board have worked particularly hard this year to gather your opinions and ideas, to examine the risks, and to bring forward a Charging Scheme that combines known elements with a set of changes aiming to marry fairness to simplicity. We all look forward very much to see many of you personally at the Vienna RIPE meeting, and also are very excited to see that the ability to use electronic voting on all resolutions in the General Meeting has minimised the threshold for participation. kind regards, Axel Pawlik Managing Director RIPE NCC

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Fwd: Re: budget 2012
by Hank Nussbacher 06 Oct '11

06 Oct '11

> >At 12:19 05/10/2011 -0300, SPEEDNIC S.R.L. - RIPE Handling wrote: >>One big point is that the personnel expenses will growing up by 6,3% >>!?!?! I don't guess that each one will get more money at this amount. >>But why we need that high increase - more personnel maybe - but why ?? >>The work at RIPE will be the same as before without needing more >>personnel because LIR can be waiting without problem like one day longer >>for some requests too - isn't it ? >> >>General Operating Expenses +10,8% ??? It is a joke not ? > >Ask yourself, why no one from RIPE has over the past week added to the >discussion here with the reasons and justifications for why they need to >increase their budget. > >-Hank > > >>Best regards, >> Alexander Schoberl >> SPEEDNIC S.R.L. Also note that the 9% increased budget is not up for voting. The only thing up for voting is the charging scheme. The 19MEuro budget is fait accompli. -Hank

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Yet Another Proposal for the Charging Scheme 2012
by Sven Wiese 06 Oct '11

06 Oct '11

Hiya @everyone, I hope I didn't miss any of the last 108 E-Mails came through the mailing list these days. The current issues are concerning the charging scheme and the budget. Regarding the charging scheme, as I understood the RIPE NCC was interested in a "per IP" billing base, but this can't be done easily without risk due to tax issues. I hope no one proposed it yet and I didn't see it, so I don't bother people with my email now having a already existing proposal ;) In my opinion, the most fair solution for everyone would be if the RIPE removes the category based charging scheme and makes one member fee for everyone. Something like 500 EUR. Then there are no tax issues anymore, because RIPE takes a membership fee, so it has members. Additionally to this 500 EUR "base fee", every resource will be billed additionally, like currently with the IPv4-PI. I think that would solve all problems and we get our fair "per IP (resource)" billing. Something like: ASN = 50 EUR IPv4-PI /24 = 50 EUR IPv4-PI /23 = 100 EUR IPv4-PI /22 = 200 EUR IPv4-PI /21 = 400 EUR IPv4-PI /20 = 800 EUR [...] IPv4 alloc /22 = 50 EUR IPv4 alloc /21 = 100 EUR IPv4 alloc /20 = 200 EUR IPv4 alloc /19 = 400 EUR IPv4 alloc /18 = 800 EUR IPv4 alloc /17 = 1.600 EUR [...] IPv6 alloc /32 = 100 EUR [...] So, a LIR with a /17 IPv4 alloc, a /32 IPv6 alloc, a ASN and a /24 PI for his customer will pay 2.200 EUR. 500 EUR membership base fee + 1.600 EUR /17 alloc + 50 EUR ASN + 50 EUR /24 IPv4-PI. I just wrote some numbers down, without actually calculating a real price per allocation. The real prices have to be calculated based on the budget. But in my opinion this is the most fair way to bill its members. So everyone gets billed for the resources the he/she uses. Our own category wouldn't actually change with the proposal from RIPE, but still I'm concerned regarding our community. Cheers, Sven -- Sven Wiese CEO I.C.S. "Trabia-Network" S.R.L. [t] +373 (22) 844-844 [e] s.wiese(a)trabia.net <mailto:s.wiese@trabia.net> [i] www.trabia.net <http://www.trabia.net> Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not in the addresses indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not copy or deliver this message to anyone. In such a case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply e-mail.

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Re: [members-discuss] Yet Another Proposal for the Charging Scheme 2012
by Sven Wiese 06 Oct '11

06 Oct '11

On 06.10.2011 12:34 , Michiel Klaver wrote: > So, you first suggest a basic member fee to avoid billing per IP, but > then you move to a scheme where you actually suggest fees per block of > IP addresses. Tell me, how is this not billing per ip? It still looks > like RIPE will be 'selling' amounts of IP addresses, grouped in > blocks. And selling 'products' has to be taxed. As Nigel wrote, the issues is that the RIPE NCC need to have *Members* to keep its status within the tax authorities. It's the *exact* same model as we have already with IPv4-PI. You pay your category fee and additional per each IPv4-PI resource. With my proposal we would have all the same category and also get billed for each PA resource. Cheers, Sven -- Sven Wiese CEO I.C.S. "Trabia-Network" S.R.L. [t] +373 (22) 844-844 [e] s.wiese(a)trabia.net <mailto:s.wiese@trabia.net> [i] www.trabia.net <http://www.trabia.net> Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not in the addresses indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not copy or deliver this message to anyone. In such a case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply e-mail.

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Re: [members-discuss] [Ticket#2011100501001154] Proposed 2012 Charging scheme, Board comments
by Brandon Butterworth 05 Oct '11

05 Oct '11

> If you forget your invoice, no notice, but after 30 days your membership > can be taken away with a sign up fee to re-instate.(5.3) ORLY. It always takes a while to get these invoices paid (corporation with limited supplier list requiring an exception order that as there's only one invoice per year is starting again from fresh each time, and it's international payment to confuse matters). This is a crazy plan, unless you need the re-instate income. I, like many others I suspect, don't have time to pay attention to the details of RIPE operation and trust them and the members approving on my behalf to do the right thing. As with the PI end user contracts it seems that is an unsafe trust. I always saw RIPE as the sane version of ARIN, please no extra crazy. brandon

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Proposed 2012 Charging scheme, Board comments
by Nigel Titley 05 Oct '11

05 Oct '11

Dear all, I would like to update you about the RIPE NCC Executive Board deliberations regarding the draft charging scheme for 2012. We presented you with two draft schemes, in early summer, to gather feedback from you. We did this as we wanted to hear your opinions on measures we want to take which are designed to keep the RIPE NCC financially stable and capable of serving its members as it should. You engaged in a lively discussion on this mailing list, and even ran a mini-survey. We followed the exchanges closely and as result asked RIPE NCC staff to provide the board with another charging scheme option, based on a sliding scale scheme that eliminated the membership categories we currently use. During the board meeting of last Friday, 23 September, we discussed the merits as well as some of the issues of that model. Obviously a sliding scale model as its main benefit does away with the fee jumps of the category based model. We were pleased with the model that we developed with the NCC staff and felt that it addressed many of the issues raised by you, the members. However, in consultation with our tax lawyers we have had to think again. Because it brings a "fee-per-address" flavour to the charging model of the RIPE NCC it fundamentally alters the tax scheme under which we operate. The current "category" model allows us to argue that we are a membership association with different categories of membership. This brings substantial tax advantages. As you know, for a long time the RIPE NCC tax situation has been extremely favourable, as we don't have to pay corporation tax, based on an agreement made with the Dutch tax authorities many years ago. We are advised that the envisaged change in the charging scheme would lead to a re-assessment of that agreement, with the likely outcome that the association's surplus would have to be taxed, leading to a significant financial liability, with an obvious knock-on effect to the member fees. In the light of this, the board members have agreed not to expose our organisation to that risk, staying with a category based system. We have however noted your preference for reduced "fee jumps" between categories, and have instructed NCC staff to produce a charging scheme model based on 10 categories, doubling the current category number. Category divisions will be based on a count of address space held. This revised Charging Scheme 2012 we will publish, as usual, prior to the General Meeting in November, for approval by the members during the General Meeting. We can advise you already that we are opening up the voting mechanism for all resolutions to include electronic voting, so that all members of the association have a good opportunity to take a full part in the proceedings. At this time, I would like to thank you all, on behalf of the RIPE NCC Executive Board, for participating in the discussion. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the next General Meeting. Best regards, Nigel Titley Chairman RIPE NCC Executive Board

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Re: [members-discuss] [#17618] Re: [Ticket#2011100501001154] Proposed 2012 Charging scheme, Board comments
by Alfredo Sola 05 Oct '11

05 Oct '11

> Dear Valued Private Layer Customer, I am not a private layer customer. You have sent to your ticketing system an e-mail address which you previously subscribed to a mailing list. Is your company managed by lawyers by any chance? -- Alfredo Sola ASP5-RIPE http://www.solucionesdinamicas.net/

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Re: [members-discuss] [Ticket#2011100501001154] Proposed 2012 Charging scheme, Board comments
by Alfredo Sola 05 Oct '11

05 Oct '11

>> On the contrary: Those who use up large portions of the address space >> should damn well pay large portions of the NCC's bills. > I'm with you. I agree, too. This is actually part of my proposal for fee calculation, which is also philosophically aligned to the "wiwi proposal" which was well received and discussed not long ago. Looking back, I see a broad feeling towards "the bigger the use (of resorces), the higher the fee". I merely proposed a simple mathemathical formula to take all the relevant parameters into account. I am happy with any practical approach that implements this idea. -- Alfredo Sola ASP5-RIPE http://www.solucionesdinamicas.net/

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Re: [members-discuss] [Ticket#2011100301002013] Discussion : Cost allocation
by Hank Nussbacher 04 Oct '11

04 Oct '11

At 08:50 04/10/2011 +0100, Chris Russell wrote: >Content-Language: en-US >Content-Type: multipart/alternative; > >boundary="_000_1E130DCA55D169479976824AA6D4DB332A050787CDUKNEWK0999SV0_" > >Alexey, > > > >Ã We can give 2 initial seats for free for learning in Amsterdam. And if >LIR will have training course in another country - he should paid for this >service (travel, visa support, hotels for RIPE people). > >I would be completely opposed to this, RIPE has a duty to all European >LIRâs and to me the availability of local training is certainly >something that should come from the membership fees. In the UK RIPE have >recently expanded training to encompass cities away from London, notably >in the north of England â something which we, being based in this area, >are grateful for. Some see it one way - you and others see it another way. Democracy means we vote and the majority wins. I hope RIPE takes that into account rather than making the decisions on their own. Regards, Hank > > >With that said, I would not be averse to a nominal charge for attendance >of RIPE meeting to cover costs of the facilities etc. Lunch, and any >social activities should ideally be covered via Sponsorship. > > > > > >Chris > > > > > > >---------- >Knowledge I.T. >âUnifying Business Technologyâ >www.knowledgeit.co.uk > > >---------- >Knowledge Limited, Company Registration: 1554385 >Registered Office: New Century House, Crowther Road, Washington, Tyne & >Wear. NE38 0AQ >Leeds Office: Viscount Court, Leeds Road, Rothwell, Leeds. LS26 0GR > >Tel: 0845 142 0020. Fax: 0845 142 0021 > >E-Mail Disclaimer: This e-mail message is intended to be received only by >persons entitled to receive the confidential information it may contain. >E-mail messages to clients of Knowledge IT may contain information that is >confidential and legally privileged. Please do not read, copy, forward, or >store this message unless you are an intended recipient of it. If you have >received this message in error, please forward it to the sender and delete >it completely from your computer system. > >Please consider the environment before printing this email. >---- >If you don't want to receive emails from the RIPE NCC members-discuss >mailing list, please log in to your LIR Portal account and go to the >general page: >https://lirportal.ripe.net/general/view > >Click on "Edit my LIR details", under "Subscribed Mailing Lists". From >here, you can add or remove addresses.

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[#14514]: Discussion : Cost allocation
by Michel Maggi 04 Oct '11

04 Oct '11

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