In May 2024 RIPE held their General Meeting where they outlined their budget, 2023 financial report as well as gave LIR's A/B/C options to vote for around changes to the billing scheme that will be adopted in January 2025.
Unlike previous years RIPE revoked LIR's ability to vote for the existing Charging Scheme to be maintained. Model C was voted in which includes a new charge for existing and new ASN's, a LIR fee increase of 16.13% and a 50% increase in yearly fees for Provider Independent Resource allocations.
How has Scaleblade billed their ASNs?
Scaleblade has always aimed to offer a reasonable price option to new and upcoming business' with one-time registration fee's for ASN's. This was feasible before due to there being no annual resource holding fee. This is no longer financially possible and for the first time we will be introducing an annual fee of £65 to all new and existing ASN registrations.
This fee has been set at £65 to account for multiple costs that will be introduced with this RIPE change:
- RIPE, NCC 50 EURO yearly per ASN fee.
- Transaction and accountancy fees related to the additional transactions.
- Buffer for fluctuation in currency conversion.
- Additional man hours involved in the sponsorship-dropping and charge tracking.
Our goal with all of our ASN/LIR products is not to pull a profit and it never will be. We want to make networking as open and accessible as possible for hobbyists, small businesses and individuals in the education sector. We hope that in future General Meetings RIPE will reconsider their budgetary standing with this charge and re-evaluate its need, in that scenario Scaleblade commits to removing or reducing our annual fee in-line with the trends set by RIPE.
New ASN Pricing Schemes
As of December 1st 2024 all existing and new ASN's will have a payment due of £65 as part of their annual sponsorship contribution. We are in the process of rolling out new billing and management systems for existing ASN's we sponsor. Customers will see and be notified of these changes via email once they are live.
On November 1st 2024 we will generate the invoice and notify resource holders of the required payment. All payments will be due and must be paid in full by December 1st 2024, we will invoke a 72 hour grace period after the due date for any late payments. After this any resources that have outstanding balances will be unsponsored by Scaleblade and will be given the arbitrary 90 day notice period by RIPE directly to find a new sponsoring LIR.
Any new ASN's applied for between November 1st and December 31st will be required to pay their £65 resource contribution with their ASN registration fee.
Examples of new billing
Client A - Existing ASN holder with Scaleblade
- Will receive notice for payment on November 1st 2024 due by December 1st 2024.
- Ability to cancel sponsorship at anytime before December 1st 2024.
Client B - New ASN applicant applying in August 2024
- Will be charged registration fee in accordance to our existing plans at the time of registration.
- Will receive notice for payment on November 1st 2024 due by December 1st 2024.
- Ability to cancel sponsorship at anytime before December 1st 2024.
Client C - New ASN applicant applying in late November 2024
- Will be charged registration fee in accordance to our existing plans along with the £65 sponsorship fee at the time of registration.
- Will receive notice for payment on November 1st 2025 due by December 1st 2025 (following year).
- Ability to cancel sponsorship at anytime before December 1st 2025.
Summary
ASN's will now invoke an annual sponsorship fee for all customers. Scaleblade aims to be as fair and transparent as possible when passing this fee off to our customers. For more information you can see the voting result of the RIPE NCC general meeting in May 2024. You can also view the full Charging Scheme that is due to come into effect in 2025.
If you have any specific questions regarding your individual circumstances or how charges may change for you then please reach out to via our support desk at https://my.scaleblade.com.