________________________________________________________________________ prop-040-v001: Proposal for APNIC non-member annual service fee ________________________________________________________________________ Author: APNIC Secretariat Version: 1 Date: 7 August 2006 Introduction ------------ Service fees charged to non-member account holders by the APNIC Secretariat are inconsistent and have become problematic to administer. This policy proposal introduces more consistent and manageable service fees for non-member account holders of APNIC. Note that this proposal has no impact on APNIC members, who receive services according to the APNIC Membership fee schedule. Summary of the current problem ------------------------------ The non-member services affected include AS Number, IP address, DNS reverse delegation, and historical resource maintenance services. 1. ASN maintenance The non-member maintenance fee for ASN delegations is US$50 per year for each ASN. For historical resources however, any number of ASN delegations is included under a single maintainer, at a cost of US$100 per year. 2. IP address assignment There is a non-member service for IP address assignment, but it is not well known and is rarely used. In addition, it bears no resemblance to the membership fee structure and is, therefore, difficult to explain and administer. 3. DNS reverse delegation APNIC offers DNS reverse delegation services to non-members, but the current fee structure is illogical and has never been applied. 4. Historical resource maintenance Since 2003, a non-member maintenance fee for historical resources has been in place, charged at the rate of US$100 per year, regardless of the number of resources being maintained. APNIC Secretariat staff often spend a lot of time dealing with non-member account holders explaining the fee differences. Collection of fees can take longer to chase up and there are insufficient penalties to deter fee defaulters. Situation in other RIRs ----------------------- ARIN provides a full range of services to both ARIN subscriber (non-member) accounts and to ARIN members. The same fee structure is used in either case, so there is no risk of confusion of inconsistency in fees. AfriNIC, LACNIC, and RIPE NCC provide services only to member organisations whose membership status is up to date. Non-member services are not provided. Proposal -------- The following revisions are proposed to the current non-member service and fee schedule. 1. Account maintenance Non-member account holders of APNIC will be charged a service fee of US$50 per year to maintain an APNIC account, irrespective of their resource holding. This service fee will provide access to MyAPNIC for maintaining account and related information and will allow resource objects to be maintained within the whois database. The account maintenance fee will be waived for those settling their account by credit card payment. 2. ASN maintenance Non-member account holders will be charged US$50 per year for each ASN held (whether historical or current). The non-member AS Number assignment service will still be available at the existing fee of US$500 per ASN. 3. IP address maintenance Non-member IP address holders will be charged $50 per year for each historical assignment held. Current IP address holdings will continue to be charged at existing rates. New assignments/allocations of IP addresses to non-members will not be available. 4. Service revocation Revocation of resources for non-payment of service fees - APNIC will revoke and reclaim resources from non-member account holders who do not pay their annual service fees by the due date. - APNIC will transfer these recovered resources into the free pool after 12 months of non-payment from the due date. - Non-member account holders may request the return of revoked resources, within 90 days from the due date, subject to a US$100 reversal fee and full payment of all outstanding fees. No returns will be possible after this time and rights to existing resources will be lost. Fee summary ----------- +----------------------+---------------+-------------------+ | Fee types | Historical | APNIC resources | | | resources(*) | | +----------------------+---------------+-------------------+ | Per ASN fee | US$50 | US$50 | | | | | | Per IPv4 assignment | US$50 | US$819.20 | | | | | | Account maintenance | US$50 | US$50 | +----------------------+---------------+-------------------+ (*) Historical resources are those which were originally allocated by other registries, such as InterNIC, and AUNIC. Pros/Cons --------- Advantages: This proposal introduces fair and consistent charging for APNIC for services rendered to non-member account holders. It removes inconsistencies from the current schedule and will reduce customer confusion, which in turn will reduce APNIC secretariat workload. Disadvantages: In a few cases, organisations cannot sign an APNIC membership agreement, due to their own constraints (for instance, some Government organisations are prohibited from entering membership agreements of any kind). To address this case, a new non-member service agreement may be established in future, based on the current membership agreement and member fee schedule. Effect on APNIC --------------- No direct effect on the existing APNIC members. Effect on NIRs -------------- No direct effect to NIRs. Implementation -------------- Immediately after endorsement by the EC.