[Wg-apnic-fees] APNIC 23 Fee Discussion Summary

["mcliang" <mcliang@twnic.net.tw>]

Dear Colleagues:

The APNIC 23 meeting is a very fruitful meeting for the fee structure 
discussion. In this meeting, APNIC had arranged two 90 min sessions for the 
fee working group chaired by Randy Bush and Ming-Cheng Liang. In the first 
session, the chairman had arranged reports on the history of APNIC fee 
changed (by Che-Hoo Cheng) , followed by the RIR comparison (by Randy Bush). 
After that, we had reports from Paul Wilson about the proposed APNIC fee 
structure v2.3 and the Poll results.

After Paul’s reports, one of the most interesting surprises of the day had 
occurred, i.e., a report from RIPE-NCC by Axel Pawlik about their fee 
structure. Unlike our ‘rental’ methodology for the fee structure, RIPE-
NCC’s fee structure is based on a service methodology. The amount of 
payment from an LIR is based on the amount of services provided by RIPE, not 
by the amount of address held by LIR. In order to implement this idea, RIPE 
has introduced an aging scheme based on the amount of address obtained, the 
time that the address is obtained, and other factors. Also, there is an 
activity review process from members to determine what should or should not 
be done by RIPE. 

In RIPE’s model, the LIRs are relatively ranked according to the aging 
scheme. According to where an LIR is ranked, it will be put into one of the 
five groups for their payments. Because RIPE’s fee model is a service based 
model, the highest payment and the lowest payment is only about 4 to 1. The 
highest payment is about 5000 EU and the lowest payment is a little bit 
higher than 1000 EU. 

The second session of the fee discussion was open microphone. Randy gave us 
another surprise. He asked the LACNIC people to report their model. So, we 
found that APNIC is not the only RIR that has NIRs insides. For an LIR 
within an NIR, LACNIC gets 30% of their payments. This is also an 
interesting idea. After that, we had three reports from JPNIC, TWNIC and 
KRNIC with comments and alternate solution to Paul’s proposal. 

The JPNIC’s comment was reported by Maimura Son. It mainly concentrated on 
the differentiation between services provided by APNIC and NIRs to LIRs 
inside the NIR. 

TWNIC’s presentation was reported by M. C. Liang. The report is a counter 
proposal to Paul’s proposal. TWNIC’s model is based on the current APNIC’
s model with a modification of the stepwise fee structure into a continuous 
fee structure. Also, a modification to the additional fees paid by NIRs to 
increase the financial stability of APNIC. This modification could increase 
APNIC’s revenue by about 15%. 

KRNIC’s comments were presented by Billy Cheon. NIRs are quite concerned 
about that all the LIRs within a NIR are counted to calculate the 
contribution from NIR. It is suggested that all the LIRs within NIR should 
be treated as a whole when the fee is calculated. This is the same 
methodology used in the current APNIC’s fee model, but it is different from 
Paul’s new proposal.

At the end of the fee WG open microphone discussion and in the AMM fee WG 
report, most of the opinions expressed are in favor of the service based 
charge scheme used by RIPE. In order to explore the possibility of a fee 
model based on the service methodology that is suitable for APNIC, Ming-
Cheng Liang (with the help of Randy and Philip) agreed to work with APNIC 
staffs to come up with a reference model in the next couple of months for 
further discussion.

One important suggestion from our chairman Randy is that fee structure is a 
complicated issue, all we want to do in this working group is to find a 
possible solution that might be acceptable for all members. So, during the 
discussion process, let us try to keep our humor to solve the problem. Most 
importantly, try not to blame anyone when you express your opinion. 

In the mean time, it might be worth a while to think whether we want to keep 
the traditional address rental methodology or to use a service based 
methodology in our future fee model for APNIC.

Have Fun



Ming-Cheng Liang
02-23411313 ext. 101
0931779936