LIR as a Service

"""A local Internet registry (LIR) is an organization that has been
allocated a block of IP addresses by a regional Internet registry
(RIR), and that assigns most parts of this block to its own customers.
Most LIRs are Internet service providers, enterprises, or academic
institutions. Membership in an Regional Internet registry is required
to become an LIR.""" -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Internet_registry

Recently a member project approached the board asking to sign
contracts with an RIR, so this member project could become an LIR. On
the other hand, SPI signing up for this member project would mean that
no other SPI member project could become an LIR any more. Therefor
board members are currently talking about SPI to register with a RIR
to become a LIR. This would then enable member projects to request and
get IP block allocations. The procedure for initial registration is
costly, and has annual fees associated with it. In addition to sorting
out the membership, there is also a technical ongoing maintenance
required for applying for IP blocks and sorting out associated
sysadmin work. Some directors have suggested to pilot this service for
all member projects. And contribute towards costs for the initial two
year period from the SPI general reserves. And revisit this financial
sponsorship decision thereafter.

Pricing structure:
https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-620

* One-off sign-up fee 2 000 EUR (approx. 2 188 USD)
* annual fee of 1 600 EUR (approx. 1750 USD)¹
* per assignment fee of 50 EUR (approx. 54.71 USD).
¹ Annual charges are announced by RIPE on annual basis, but used to go
down during the past few years. see RIPE-620 for details

Signing contracts with an RIR is inline with current services offered
by SPI for all member projects. Currently SPI has little capacity for
taking on technical/sysadmin work resulting with this engagement, and
thus this would need to be provided by member projects using the IP
allocation services. However, there are a few ways to potentially
split the signup / annual / assignment fees and it depends on the
level of interest for such a resource among the SPI member projects.

Does your project currently have IPs allocated to them? Do you have a
demand and/or need for large blocks of IPs which are otherwise not
available? Would you use SPI as a LIR, if such a service was available
to you? And at what cost? These are the general questions we would
like to consult on with the member projects.

Examples of how to account the expenses for this service could be:

1) Single Member Project foots all bills
2) Members that use the service share all bills
3) Members that use the service share annual & assignment fees, but
SPI pays the one-off sign-up fee
4) SPI foots the bill of the one-off & annual charges for the first 2
years; and member project only pay assignment fees during that time
5) SPI foots the bill of the one-off & 50% of the annual charges;
participating members share the other 50% plus pay for the assignment
fees

Please send any feedback you have on this matter.

Regards,

SPI Board of Directors.