Dear Members of the Working group, I am writing to express my concern regarding the proposals under consideration for the future RIPE NCC charging scheme, specifically the potential increase in fees for PI Assignment. Any changes to the charging scheme should take regional characteristics into account. Different countries within the RIPE service region have diverse network structures, operator sizes, and resource usage patterns. In Ukraine, PI resources are widely used to ensure network resilience and independence, and the number of organizations using PI blocks significantly exceeds the number of LIRs. This widespread use of PI addressing contributes to a decentralized, robust, and distributed Internet infrastructure. A disproportionate increase in fees for PI blocks, as currently proposed in the consultations, would place a significant financial burden on small ISPs, regional networks, and other infrastructure organizations, many of which are already operating under serious economic pressure during long-term war. This could have several unintended consequences: - Higher fees may discourage the use of PI addressing for multihoming, potentially affecting network resilience and independence. - Additional costs may strain budgets, limiting the ability to maintain robust network architectures. - PI resources are essential for redundancy and rapid traffic rerouting in the event of failures; increasing their cost could unintentionally reduce the adoption of these practices. I therefore urge the Task Force to maintain annual fees for PI resources at the current level, avoiding disproportionate financial burden on operators that rely on these resources for critical connectivity. I appreciate the efforts of the Task Force and the transparency of the ongoing consultation process, and hope that the regional specifics of Ukraine will be duly considered. -- Kind regards, Regional Director Viner Telecom ISP