I
appreciate your recommendations. It will be even more helpful if you can draft
your statement into a policy proposal. Thus all members can share your
thought
with a distinct context. This approach strengthen the foundation of
policy making and
does help to speed up the process.
Best Regards
Kenny Huang
From: sig-policy-bounces at lists dot apnic dot net
[mailto:sig-policy-bounces at lists dot apnic dot net] On Behalf Of Jas
Webb Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 11:27 AM To:
sig-policy at apnic dot net; wg-apnic-fees at apnic dot net Subject: [sig-policy]
The fees and slowness of policy.
Hi,
I listened into the APNIC web/audio casts (nice btw!) of
the fee discussions and even though my feelings are not aligned to those of the
company I work for, as an individual, I would like to raise concerns that are
shared by myself and some IT/networking colleagues.
I'm posting this to
both the fees list and the policy list as it has, I think, content for both.
Apologies for duplicates.
* This fees process has been going on for five
years! You have got to be kidding! There must be something wrong with the policy
structure for this to take so long at the risk of causing the governance bodies
in the region hardship (ie RIR + NIRs). I've heard and read statements about
complexity and complex math to work out costs.. It can't be that hard. simplify
it with favour to the member, not the NIR or APNIC!
* I see that the
NIRs do a service to their country, and are well suited to dealing with local
issues, but while the NIRs ask questions about the financial needs of APNIC,
they don't seem to be offering their budgets up for comment by the whole AP
community.
I see the cost associated with maintaining appropriate
governance and custodianship of the ip space as the combined costs from each
entity in the AP region doing the job.. so the total costs are those from APNIC
+ JPNIC + KRNIC + APJII(?) + CNNIC + TWNIC + etc.. once you have that figure you
can then really work out what is the TRUE cost of managing the IP/IPv6/AS
resource for the Asia Pacific. At that point you can then start to consider how
to fairly distribute the costs of management to all members equally regardless
of the country they operate in.
* Redefining what is a member. Entities
involved in the governance administration should not be members, sorry NIRS, you
are custodians like APNIC, your votes don't count, nor should you be a proxy,.
but your members' do and can. The voting power should be with the member. APNIC
membership should be given directly to the NIR member as a direct result of
having resources, making them APNIC members. Naturally a cost is involved, and
should be accounted for.
* all members should have equal votes.
honestly.. in my opinion 1 member = 1 vote. The idea that just because telstra
or optus has a bigger network than I do they are entitled to stronger voting
powers by numbers is absurd! A company is just a single legal entity, SINGLE!.
The fact that they have a bigger network and more IP addresses just means thy
have a bigger network and more ip addresses. nothing else. The cost of servicing
those IPs is a cost of business, not an entitlement to create a voting
juggernaut. The current system suggests a shareholding approach, not one where
everyone are equal stakeholders.
* Once the total figure for IP
management by the *IRs has taken place, then divide the total cost by the
allocated number of resources ( by some prefix length if you have to) and then
that constitutes the base line for the current costs to be recouped and assigned
to each members' resource holding. (yes this means that the NIRs have to front
up with the allocation stats on the "NIR-pool", isn't that well overdue anyway?)
The fees charged to members is then a indexed value to economic growth and
overall costs associated with operating all *IRs in the AP region. This also
means that all members pay the same regardless of country they reside in.
Division of these costs to NIRs and APNIC then depends on the _actual_
efforts of the *IRs to manage resources, provide member services, support
internet development, and meet SLAs. Yes SLAs - it is well overdue that the NIRs
and APNIC provide SLAs and meet or beat them? Earlier in the week, one of the
APNIC people did a thing on improving dns service by what I calculate as 600%!!
2hrs to 2 mins.. I also notice that that policy was rejected. See my earlier
comments about the effectiveness of the policy mechanism.
All *IRs need
to front up with what their future operational plans are for oversight by the
community for their portion of the "pie".. Maybe in addition to the RIR reports
there should be NIR financial reports and planning! So really the APNIC Member
Meeting becomes an APNIC Stakeholder Meeting.
When it all boils down,
every resource holder should be a direct member of APNIC regardless of being
serviced through an NIR or not. Thus:
+ Everyone pays the same,
regardless of being serviced by NIR or APNIC.
+ Each single member has
one equal vote.
+ Each member pays an equal annual membership fee (no
tiers!)
+ Each member pays the annual service fees depending on how many
resources they use/have.
Will costs increase for members.. certainly.
But it will be fair. Fair voting, and fair fees, and it will represent the
current economic climate and future climate, if indexed.
If discounts to
least developed countries must exist, then so be it. But only for the membership
fee. Everyone needs to pay the same for resources to support the governance
process. This is a cost of business and a cost of the internet.
The free
netblocks, historical stuff, should be charged! the free ride is over, the
holders of these blocks should do the right thing! Contribute to the actual real
costs...
I think all the NIRS need to exist, in addition to APNIC,
seeing the recent thing in America about the law suit against ARIN, the *IRS
should establish a combined legal fund to ensure that any legal action against
any *IRs is funded for the survival of the bodies.
Keep in mind
"survive", I don't think the AP *IRs need to prosper exactly.. If an NIR is
experiencing hardship then a "bailout" package should be created by the other
NIRs+APNIC. IF an NIR is in a situation that requires this bailout package then
the NIR's operation and costs need to be investigated.. ie Why housed in an
expensive location in the middle of Tokyo? Or having a huge in house data center
instead of using tele housed centers? or even having excess telehoused centers!
Why does APNIC have one in the USA? and can they share with the NIRs to reduce
the OVERALL costs of the *IR service delivery.
This email has been long
enough, and I expect it will upset the incumbents with their position of power,
but these concerns are valid, and shared. I don't know how widespread the
sharing is - but I can only hope more than just in my little part of the region.