RE: FW: [registrars] the iana function

[Rick Wesson <wessorh@ar.com>]

Rob,


On Tue, 11 Feb 2003, Rob Hall wrote:

> Actually Rick, you are now on the budget committee as one of our reps, so
> you have access to exactly what it costsand how much of it we pay.  You may
> need to ask for more detail from the staff, but I believe you are entitled
> to it.

I have yet to receive such and can only work from the fy02-03 budget at
http://www.icann.org/financials/budget-fy02-03-28jun02.htm

> If I recall, there are 4 basic groups that fund ICANN.  Registrars,
> Registries, the RIR's and the ccTLD's.

correct but there is only one group with variable fees, which is us. all
the other groups have fees fixed by contract; furthermore registries and
registrars are the only group to pay their fees in full -- the other
groups have not paid their fees and in one case hold them in escrow though
ICANN reports them as revenue. see note 18 at
http://www.icann.org/financials/budget-fy02-03-28jun02.htm#Note18


> Given that the ccTLD's and the RIR's have always claimed their portion was
> too high, and that they should just be paying for the service they receive
> from basically what is the IANA function, it would seem that the cost of
> providing the IANA function is less than the portion attributed to the RIR's
> and ccTLD's.

to date neither group has paid their fees in full and in some cases ICANN
doesn't even collect the fees as the tier 1 ccTLDs don't have them (as
noted in the above reference to note 18)

> If the IANA function left ICANN, and the RIR and ccTLD contributions to the
> budget went with it, I would bet that the cost of running ICANN would not
> change much, and now Registrars and Registries would be left on the hook for
> the entire budget.

If the accounting for IANA were available we could find out who won your
bet, alas IANA is a administrative function and the RIR and ccTLD groups
would still have to use ICANN for policy development but they would have a
different administrator for the IANA function.

I suspect and will endeavor to determine the true cost of the IANA function
so that we can understand if we derive financial benefit from the
relationship or if are subsidizing the function and to determine that
amount.

> So I suspect that those that use the IANA function are more than paying for
> it, and that it is financially in our benefit to keep those that pay around.
> (I won't even begin to comment on the fact that some ccTLD's aren't paying
> their share at all!)

since we don't know the costs at this time it hard for us to determine
though it is clear that if the costs to run IANA increase there is but one
source to derive additional funding from -- the registrars.

best,

-rick