JPNIC Translated Document Source document: JPNIC REPORT 14 Date of the source: December 1994 Date of the last update of this translation: November 16, 1995 This is a translation of a JPNIC document. JPNIC provides this translation for convenience of those who can not read Japanese. But it may contain mis-translations, and is by no means official. One should consult the source document written in Japanese for detail. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Modification of the membership fees system As it was mentioned in the 8/94 issue, JPNIC has been performing several investigations related to the membership fees system. The contents of the investigations was reported during the general meeting held at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (October 7). During the general meeting, as a step towards the modification of the rules, the approval has been achieved for the modification of membership fees for the year 1995. Here, the details will be explained. For the present membership fees and rules, please refer to the 12/93 issue, and for an outline of the modification, please refer to the 8/94 issue. Outline The main points of the proposal for the new membership fees rule are as follows. o Membership fees from the JPNIC members The network projects will be treated as members and membership fees is to be obtained from them in the conventional way. However, the so far difference related to the amount of membership fees between academic and other organization is to be abolished. o Introduction of registration fee and maintenance fee A new registration fee for the network resources (IP address, domain name) that are administrated by JPNIC and the annual charge for maintaining these resources is to be introduced. o Introduction of supporting member system This would be the system where the member will support and aid JPNIC activities. Because of the reasons like, new rules are not thoroughly investigated, lack of mutual agreement from the domestic Internet users, time necessary for taking the step for setting up the expenses etc., it has been decided that further investigation is necessary and the work is in progress for starting this system from 1996. As the administrative works get increased the expenses also get increased. In order to handle this problem along with a smooth introduction of the new rules, the membership system for the year 1995 will remain the same but on the contrary the new rule for obtaining a registration fee for IP address and domain name is set. The charge for 1 IP address (1 class C address) and 1 domain name is set to 10,000 Yen. Prerequisites for membership fees The following prerequisites has been set for investigating the membership fees system. o Unbiased rules Internet is used widely for the academic research purpose and it is about to become an important basis of information within the country. In this situation dependency on some particular community, and the wide difference in the membership fees will block the sound development of the Internet. o Fund for a stabilized administration of JPNIC With the growth of the Internet, the administrative work of JPNIC has increased and a rise in the expenses is expected. In that case a mechanism is necessary for which the income would get increased as the administrative works get increased. Besides, at the same time it is necessary to consider the importance for transforming JPNIC into an incorporation and at present the subject is under investigation. o Should be approved internationally Internet is realized by international cooperation. Even for the expenses of JPNIC it should not stray from the international Internet objective. o Should be realizable It is necessary to think about a realistic payment system where the payment would be simple. Membership fees from the network projects JPNIC members are formed by the network projects that administrate the networks. This is because JPNIC is set as a common center for these network projects. This basis has not been changed in the process of modifying the rules related to membership fees. Even under the new system, membership fees remain the main financial source of JPNIC. In the present system (table 1), there is a 1 to 5 difference between the academic organizations and the rest. This has caused unfairness between the conventional academic organizations and the widely increased general users. Besides, in reality it is difficult to setup a criterion for determining academic and non-academic organizations. Although the membership fee is almost logarithmically increasing with respect to the scale of the network, the number of committee members that can be registered has also became a problem and it is under investigation. Introduction of a fee based on resource allocation This is the most important point of the present proposal for modification. Until now, JPNIC did not charge any specific fees for the registration of IP address and domain name. Here, depending on the network resources utilized by a user, two new charges, namely registration, and maintenance fees are to be introduced (table 2). This would correspond to the future NIC cost due to the rapid development of the Internet and would secure the necessary expenses for a stable administration of JPNIC. Besides, as the charge is proportional to the amount of space utilized, it would reduce the feelings of unfairness. Moreover that, organizations possessing class B addresses can replace the same with the adequate number of class C addresses. In the past, this kind of basis for distributing expenses has been thought as equivalent to selling the network resources which would effect the sound development of the Internet. However, because of the rapid growth of the Internet, and for supporting the NIC work, this is considered to be one of the natural method and it is considered internationally. However, the proposal of modification by JPNIC might be the first for setting a clear direction. In order to realize this, it is necessary to consider the opinions of domestic users as well as users of countries other than Japan and the approval from the Internet community is a must. Original expenses If the new rules are put into practice, the charge for each organization that gives connection to the Internet would be related to the scale of the network project to which the organization belongs, the IP address class and the number of IP address allocated to that organization. For example, in case of an organization which belongs to a network project that have 50 registered organizations, it will become the following. -------------------------------------------------------------- Present class C * 1 class c * 8 class B * 1 -------------------------------------------------------------- 10 14 22 269 -------------------------------------------------------------- Here the unit is 1000 Yen. In most of the cases, if a class B organization replaces it with class C then the cost would become double. On the other hand, in case of a commercial network project where 800 organizations are registered, it would be calculated in the following way. -------------------------------------------------------------- Present class C * 1 class c * 8 class B * 1 -------------------------------------------------------------- 7.5 5.5 12.5 260.5 Schedule for the future As it has been said earlier, a lot of problems related to the new rules has to be solved, opinions of the Internet users have to be considered and mutual agreement has to be confirmed prior to applying the new rules. The new rules are to be applicable from 1996 and for 1995, only the new rule for introducing a charge for the registration of IP address and domain name has been added to the current rules. The membership fees for the year 1995 will be the following. o The membership fees system is not changed from the present one (*1). o Registration fees are be obtained for fresh registration of IP address and domain name. IP address : 10,000 Yen / class C 2560,000 Yen / class B Domain name : 10,000 Yen / domain (*2) (*1) Division 12 is added as a natural extension of the present rules (*2) Handling of Geographic Domain name is not yet decided. The investigation is on progress for reporting the main points of the rules from 1996, during the general meeting for the year 1995. Problems that have to be investigated There are a lot of problems which are yet to be investigated prior to the introduction of the rules. Out of them the main points are as follows. o Possession and charge for network resources This time, it has been decided to charge against the amount resources possessed by individuals. To be specific, the charge will get proportionally increased with respect to the space possessed. For example, the registration, maintenance charge for class B is set to 256 times more than that of class C. Although, from the users there are opinions like the charge is too expensive, if thought from the allocation side, if the value of class B and the exhaustion of the same is considered, then there are opinions like the charge is not at all expensive. Although a compromised plan is applied here, this also has to be investigated and mutual agreement has to be achieved. o What would be the penalty in case the amount is not paid? This is a provision for the users with a default. If thought from the fairness point of view then some kind of penalty is necessary. However, on the other hand, in reality the introduction of penalty is not familiar to the conventional Internet where administration is based on gentle agreements. Therefore a concrete measure has to be taken based on careful discussions. o Method for paying the registration and maintenance fees Although there are methods where the applicant can directly pay it to JPNIC and the method where the network project can pay it on the behalf of the user, both of the methods has its merits and demerits. In case of the present membership fees system, there are opinions that the payment based on public expense is difficult, and these points also to be considered. o Member, delegate, and the right for a claim At present, only the delegates that represent the network project can participate in the general meeting. There are opinions that some kind of arrangement is necessary for considering the opinions of the users for the registration and maintenance fees. o Future budget, expected earning and the verification of the same The finance necessary to support the increasing administrative works is to be calculated. Besides, an estimation of charge has to be made with respect to growth rate of the Internet. Finally, it is necessary to verify whether the new membership proposal is valid or not. o Other source of income, relation to incorporation process In the present proposal, the financial expenses of JPNIC is covered by the network projects and the Internet users. On the other hand, there are strong opinions that official grants from the country is necessary. This problem is to be investigated along with the problem related to the incorporation process. Although the proposal for membership fees has received the approval during the general meeting, the mutual agreement from the domestic Internet community is a must for executing the same. JPNIC is to function for the Internet of Japan and it is not a profit-making organization. In order to maintain its neutrality, the guarantee to support the proper budget of JPNIC through membership fees and charges has become an important problem. In reality, the administrative work of JPNIC has increased along with the development of the domestic Internet. Strengthening the staff or the facilities in respect to the increasing administrative work is not a sole solution. Reducing the labor by applying technology and the cooperation with other networks for distributing the administrative work is necessary. JPNIC is performing activities like address allocation, domain name administration for supporting the base of the Internet. The maintenance and development of the domestic Internet can not be blocked because of a delay in work due to unreasonable operation. The mutual agreement from the Internet community is necessary for solving these problems, and for that JPNIC's administration should be open and the decisions for deciding the future direction should also be made public. JPNIC is performing the investigations based on mailing list. For sending opinions related to membership fees system, please use the following mail address. finance-wg@nic.ad.jp Persons interested in participating in the mailing list for investigating the membership fees system are requested to write the following. . Name . e-mail address . name of the network project . name of the organization And e-mail the same to the following address. finance-wg-request@nic.ad.jp (Susumu Sano, WIDE) Table 1. The present membership fees of the JPNIC members and number of delegates registered. +-----+-------------+--------------------+----------------+------------+ | | |Most of the members |Fees(per member)|Delegates | |Class|Organizations| are individuals |Type A | Type B |(registered)| +-----+-------------+--------------------+-------+--------+------------+ | 1 | - 10 | - 10,000 | 2 | 10 | 1 | | 2 | 11 - 20 | 10,001 - 20,000 | 3 | 15 | 2 | | 3 | 21 - 30 | 20,001 - 30,000 | 4 | 20 | 2 | | 4 | 31 - 50 | 30,001 - 50,000 | 5 | 25 | 3 | | 5 | 51 - 70 | 50,001 - 70,000 | 6 | 30 | 3 | | 6 | 71 - 100 | 70,001 - 100,000 | 7 | 35 | 3 | | 7 | 101 - 200 | 100,001 - 200,000 | 8 | 40 | 4 | | 8 | 201 - 300 | 200,001 - 300,000 | 9 | 45 | 4 | | 9 | 301 - 500 | 300,001 - 500,000 | 10 | 50 | 5 | | 10 | 501 - 700 | 500,001 - 700,000 | 11 | 55 | 5 | | 11 | 701 -1000 | 700,001 -1,000,000 | 12 | 60 | 5 | +-----+-------------+--------------------+-------+--------+------------+ Membership fees: 10,0000yen/member Table 2. Registration, maintenance fees +---------+-------------------+---------------------+ | | Registration fees |Maintenance fees/year| +---------+-------------------+---------------------+ | Class B | 2,560 | 256 | | Class C | 10 | 1 | +---------+-------------------+---------------------+ | Domain | 10 | 3 | +---------+-------------------+---------------------+ (Unit: 1000 yen)