______________________________________________________________________ prop-028-v001: Abolishing IPv6 per address fee for NIRs ______________________________________________________________________ Author: NIR fee WG Version: 1.0 Date: 4 April 2005 This paper proposes that APNIC should not charge per address fee for IPv6 allocations to NIRs until it is necessary. Background ---------- The current APNIC fee scheme for NIRs consist of "Annual Membership Fee" and "Per Address Fee". Annual Membership Fee: Fee charged annually to all APNIC members based on the amount of address space that member holds. The annual membership fee is etermined by the same method as that of standard APNIC members. Per Address Fee: (additionally charged to NIRs) Fee charged to NIRs for every IPv4 and IPv6 allocations made to NIRs/NIR members. It is calculated with a defined formula which allocation size set as a variable. Refer to "Sec 3.4 Per-address fee for confederation member" in APNIC Fee Schedule Document for more details. e.g.) A "very large" member(NIR) pays the following per fee for: /17 IPv4 allocation $983.04(32,768 x $0.03) /30 IPv6 allocation $648.57(21,619 x $0.03) Reasons ------- 1. Fairness Fee schedule for NIRs disadvantages NIRs/NIR members compared to APNIC direct members. NIRs/NIR members are obliged to pay per address fees for allocations received from APNIC, while APNIC direct members are not required to pay such fees. It is not desirable to have different fee conditions between NIRs/NIR member and APNIC direct members for the same resource. 2. Amount of Fee In addition to the issue of fairness, the current IPv6 per address fee scheme leads NIRs/NIR members to pay unexpectedly large amount of fees. For example, one of the NIRs has paid $63,574 to APNIC for a /21 IPv6 allocation in year 2004, which is even larger in amount than the annual membership fee of the NIR(US$40,000). Other NIRs are also expected to face the same problem under the current fee scheme, and this is clearly disproportionate not only for NIRs, but also from APNIC's budget planning perspective. Therefore, a new reasonable NIR fee scheme should be set up. 3. Deployment of IPv6 Considering the current status of IPv6 address deployment in the AP region, it will take some time before it will be fully deployed and commercialized. Most of ISPs in the AP region are not providing connectivity service with IPv6 addresses at this stage. Charging per address fee in IPv6 may hinder the deployment of IPv6 in the region. 4. Situation in other RIRs Other RIRs, do not charge IPv6 per address fee. For example, ARIN's fee schedule for IPv6 is as follows: "Organizations that are General Members in good standing prior to requesting an initial IPv6 allocation are not charged IPv6 registration fees. Annual renewal fees for IPv6 allocations are also waived for General Members in good standing. ARIN will continue to waive these fees as long as the organization remains a General Member in good standing at the time of renewal, up until Dec. 31, 2006." LACNIC IPv6 Fee Schedule: "Currently, and until new LACNIC board decision, organizations qualifying to receive IPv6 will have the first two years fees waived. This means, the initial fee and the first annual renewal fee." Effect on APNIC --------------- It is speculated that abolishing per address for IPv6 allocations will not affect APNIC's budget. This is based on studying the past trend of APNIC budget as below: Year 2001 % 2002 % 2003 % 2004 % ------------- ------------- ------------- ------------- Member fees 2,472,532 72% 2,871,724 75% 3,409,078 76% 3,510,392 72% Per Addr v4 523,023 15% 414,301 11% 410,471 9% 569,459 12% Per Addr v6 4,543 0% 8,232 0% 7,803 0% 65,721 1% Non-mem fees 37,037 1% 66,105 2% 80,994 2% 27,686 1% Applic fees 152,401 4% 293,459 8% 351,845 8% 351,188 7% Other income 245,945 7% 160,667 4% 227,269 5% 363,811 7% --------- --------- --------- --------- Total 3,435,482 3,814,488 4,487,461 4,888,257 --------- --------- --------- --------- * APNIC has been running its budget with hardly any revenues from IPv6 per address fees(approximately 0%) until year 2003. In year 2004, it merely covered approximately 1%(US$65,721) of APNIC's total budget. This implies that the revenue portion from IPv6 per address fee is minimal. Benefits -------- - Abolishing per address fee for IPv6 allocations solves "unfairness" between NIRs and other APNIC members. - Abolishing per address fee for IPv6 allocations saves NIRs/NIR members from the burden of paying large amount fees beyond a reasonable level. - Abolishing per address fee for IPv6 may prevent APNIC fee scheme being the barrier of IPv6 deployment in the AP region. Disadvantage ------------ - None References ---------- - [ARIN IPv6 Fee Schdule] https://www.arin.net/fees/fee_schedule.html - [LACNIC IPv6 Fee Schdule] http://lacnic.net/en/registro/table.html - [APNIC Fee Schedule] http://www.apnic.net/docs/corpdocs/member-fee-schedule.doc