[icedchai]

Not necessarily. Many have their RIPE registrations through an existing, “sponsoring” LIR. They’re not paying that 1800 Euro, the LIR is.

[rmoriz]

A single AS resource and a single PI assignment cost more than the ARIN fee.

[icedchai]

Are you sure? For RIPE I see a 50 ASN plus 75 euro PI fee. ARIN is $275. Maybe I’m looking at it wrong.

It’s cheaper as a hobbyist to use a RIPE LIR. Even in the US. That’s what I’ve been doing for years.

[rmoriz]

afaik that's +VAT and also for LIRs only. LIRs apply markup, see https://www.lir.services/lir-sponsoring/ they charge 200€ per resource, so ASN + PI would be at last 400€/year that's way above the price of ARIN and you have a middleman.

You must have a sponsoring LIR for your resources or become a LIR yourself. The only exception is LEGACY resources (IPv4, no ASN) but that's a different story.

[icedchai]

There are more competitive LIRs out there. Example: https://lagrange.cloud/products/lir

It’s also cheaper for me because I have legacy ARIN space. All I really needed was an ASN. The LIR gives me some PA v6 space for cheap, too.

[rmoriz]

Okay, but that is not enough to operate independently. PA v6 is another dependency. With ARIN you get your personal IPv6 assignment.

[icedchai]

For a hobbyist, the difference is academic. You can announce PA space with your own ASN, which is what I do. If I change LIRs I’ll have to renumber my IPv6 space.