Summary

  • On 20 October 2004, ARIN adopted an IPv6 fee schedule effective the following January, with allocation and renewal categories from $1,250 to $36,000. Ray Plzak then moved to table three separate waiver motions for more analysis.
  • On 9 November, Plzak substituted a single waiver for all IPv6 fees owed by members in good standing during 2005–2006. The board passed it unanimously, leaving regularly invoiced IPv6-related fees from 2004 outside the waiver.

The October 2004 board minutes give ARIN two contradictory-looking pieces of paper. The first was a new IPv6 fee table, effective 1 January 2005: $1,250 for an XS/Micro /48, $2,250 for a Small /32, rising to $36,000 for an XX-Large /21 or greater. A friendly amendment made clear that renewals were included. The board passed the schedule unanimously. Then it reached the question of who would be charged.

Treasurer Lee Howard had three ways to waive the bill. One would extend the existing benefit for IPv4 subscribers to members without IPv4 subscriptions. Another addressed current IPv6-only subscribers and excluded their outstanding fees. The third proposed extending the general IPv6 waiver through 2005. Ray Plzak moved to table each one. The board recorded no objection, and he asked for more analysis and a Finance Committee review. A tabled motion is not a rejection; the billing boundary was still being drawn.

At the 9 November board meeting, the first item came back. Plzak moved to replace its text entirely. His substitute waived all IPv6 fees for members in good standing from 1 January 2005 through 31 December 2006. It expressly excluded IPv6-related fees that had been regularly invoiced in 2004 and remained outstanding. Lee Howard seconded it; the board adopted it unanimously by roll call. Howard then withdrew the other two October motions because the broader decision superseded them.

That sequence matters more than the word “free”. ARIN left the new tariff on the books while suspending its collection for an eligible class and a defined two-year period. A new member making a qualifying IPv6 decision in 2005 encountered the waiver. Someone with a regularly issued, unpaid IPv6 invoice from 2004 did not see that old charge erased. The record supplies neither a count of either group nor a total value of those invoices.

Plzak's intervention joined three narrow questions into one rule. The board, rather than Plzak alone, approved the result. It widened the future incentive while keeping the accounting line behind it intact. The old bill remained a bill; the new price list became a price that eligible members would not pay for two years.