[afrinic-discuss] AfriNIC-II Meeting Report

Ernest Byaruhanga ernest at afrinic.net
Mon May 9 17:15:05 SAST 2005


Dear Colleagues,

Find below a detailed report of the recently councluded AfriNIC-2 meeting.

Kind Regards,

Ernest,
AfriNIC
__________




AfriNIC-II Meeting Report
=========================

AfriNIC held its second public policy and member meeting from 26-27th 
April 2005 at Telecomunicacoes de Mocambique (TDM) Conference and 
Training Centre, Maputo - Mozambique. More than 100 participants from 
around the world attended the meeting. They included AfriNIC members 
and Board of Directors, representatives from ICANN, LACNIC, APNIC, 
RIPE NCC, ARIN, ISOC, AfNOG, officials from governments and African 
Network Operators at large.

This meeting followed the official recognition of AfriNIC (by the 
ICANN) as the fifth Regional Internet Registry serving Africa and the 
Indian Ocean regions two weeks before - a momentous event that would 
change the future of the internet on the African continent.

The meeting started on 26/4/2005 Tuesday morning at 09:30 with a 
speech from the Minister of Telecommunications in Mozambique, preceded 
by a word of welcome delivered by the chairman of the AfriNIC Board of 
Directors, Mr. Pierre Dandjinou.

All presentations can be found on the AfriNIC-2 meeting agenda web-page:

http://www.afrinic.net/meeting/afrinic-2/agenda.htm


Highlights:
----------

Major highlights of the AfriNIC-2 meeting included:

  o AfriNIC signing an MoU to become a full member of the NRO,
  o Official transfer of documents from RIPE NCC, ARIN and
    APNIC to AfriNIC,
  o Update/Report from AfriNIC,
  o Updates from the NRO and the other RIRs,
  o Election of representatives to the NRO NC (Number Resource
    Organisation Number Council (who also become ASO AC members),
  o Discussion on some proposed policies from the Policy Working
    Group,
  o Election to fill vacant seats at the AfriNIC Board of Directors,
  o Adoption of 2005 fee schedule.
  o Adoption of 2005 Budget

DAY-1: 26/04/2005
=================

The AfriNIC Board Chair, Mr. Pierre Dandjinou, welcomed everybody to 
the second AfriNIC public policy meeting, and invited the Mozambique 
Minister of Telecommunications, HE Prof. Dr. Venancio Massingue to 
inaugurate the official opening of the meeting. The minister was 
grateful to his fellow internet pioneers in Africa (like Dr. Nii 
Quaynor and Alan Barett), the Chairman of the AfriNIC Board, Mr. 
Pierre Dandjinou, the AfriNIC CEO, Mr. Adiel Akplogan and other people 
for having worked hard to make AfriNIC a reality for Africa.


AfriNIC becomes a member of the NRO:
------------------------------------

At this meeting, AfriNIC became an official member of the NRO by 
signing a joinder to the NRO Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). 
AfriNIC became a welcomed and celebrated addition to the NRO, which 
now includes all five RIRs (ARIN, RIPE NCC, LACNIC, APNIC and the new 
AfriNIC).

The AfriNIC CEO, Mr. Adiel Akplogan, presented gifts to various 
members of the other Regional Internet Registries who dedicated time 
and resources during the transition time to make AfriNIC a success. A 
beautiful painting was also received from LACNIC to AfriNIC. A special 
gift was presented to Richard Jimmerson from ARIN, for his valuable 
efforts of inter-RIR co-ordination during AfriNIC's set up and transition.

Various items for the day:
--------------------------

Presentations items for the rest of the day included updates from 
ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC and LACNIC (given by the respective CEOs all 
present in Maputo), the ASO and NRO reports (given by one of the 
AfriNIC Region ASO Observers, Mr. Alain P. Aina), talks about 
implementation of IPv6 and reverse delegation, a tutorial about how to 
request IP resources in the AfriNIC region and a presentation from the 
AfriNIC Board Chairman about the relationship between AfriNIC and the 
international internet community.

A particularly interesting presentation was from Jordi Palet Martinez 
from the European Ipv6 Task Force, also co-Chair of the "IPv6 Forum, 
Education and Promotion Working Group". The presentation was: "IPv6 is 
an innovation opportunity". He gave a live demonstration of Ipv6 at 
work - remote-controlling various devices at his home from Africa, and 
signaling/monitoring his dogs at home :-) Jordi's presentation can be 
found at:

http://www.afrinic.net/meeting/afrinic-2/presentations/26.04.05/ipv6_is_an_innovation_opportunity_v8.pdf



Elections of representatives to the NRO - Number Council (NC)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Under the terms of the MoU signed between the ICANN and the RIRs in 
October 2004, the NRO Number Council now performs the role of the 
Address Supporting Organization - Address Council (ASO AC). Members of 
the NRO NC then also become the ASO AC members.  According to the NRO 
MoU, the NC must be composed of two members selected by the regional 
policy forum of each of the RIRs and one must be appointed by the 
board of each RIR.

Since AfriNIC is now a fully accredited Regional Internet Registry, 
three representatives had to be elected at the AfriNIC-2 meeting 
according to the election process online at:

http://www.afrinic.net/nro/afnro-elp200502.htm

These representatives will represent the AfriNIC region internet 
community at the NRO Number Council (NC). Various nominations were 
received and are available online at:

http://www.afrinic.net/nro/nominees.htm

An election was held in the afternoon of 26/04/2005. Eligible voters 
were people residing and working in the AfriNIC service region. The 
vote count gave:

Sylvia Geha Kezengwa: 		27 votes
Yaovi Atohoun: 			16 votes
Jean Robert Hountomey: 		33 votes
Ali Drissa Badiel: 		23 votes
Wycliffe Ochieng: 		5 votes

Out of the 5 nominees, the following were declared elected:

- Jean Robert Hountomey		04/2005-12/2008
- Sylvia Geha Kezengwa		04/2005-12/2007

Alan Barrett was appointed by the AfriNIC board to serve for a 1 year 
mandate (04/2005-12/2006)

The day was wound-up with a glamorous social event at Hotel Cardosos 
in the centre of Maputo.

.

DAY-2: 27/04/2005
=================

The second day was dedicated to policy discussions and the member 
Annual General Meeting (AGM). A formal document transfer from ARIN, 
RIPE NCC and APNIC to AfriNIC was also conducted.

Key issues of the day:

- Official transfer of member documents/data from other RIRs to
   AfriNIC.
- discussion of various policy documents that were proposed on the
   policy working group,
- presentation and adoption of the 2005 budget,
- presentation and adoption of amendments to the fee schedule,
- renewal of the vacant seats in the AfriNIC board,
- presentation of current stats from AfriNIC RS department,
- how AfriNIC/AfNOG should co-operate, and
- the possibility of setting up an IPv6 task force in our community.

Other various presentations were made, including the Policy 
Development Process in the AfriNIC service region and the NRO 
perspective about the IPv6 global allocation policy.


Official transfer of authority from ARIN/RIPE NCC/APNIC to AfriNIC
------------------------------------------------------------------

On the morning of 27/4/2005 at AfriNIC-2, the RIRs - APNIC, ARIN, and 
the RIPE NCC signed letters transferring to AfriNIC formal authority 
for the parts of the region they had previously served, including all 
registration and accounting documentation and DNS administration. This 
now completed the transfer of all custodial and registry processes for 
the entire AfriNIC service region.

Policy Proposals:
----------------

Some new policies and a few amendments to current policy were proposed 
2 weeks before the AfriNIC-2 meeting. According to the current AfriNIC 
policy development process, at least 30 days of discussion are needed 
on the policy working group mailing list prior to face-to-face 
discussion and consequent consensus at the public policy meeting. 
These policies are:

Policy for IPv4 End-Users:

	Minimum Assignment:	/24
	Criteria:		- show existing utilisation of /25
				  from upstream
				- Or, justify immediate need of 50%
				  of total requested.
	Additional space:	- 25% immediate utilisation,and
				- 50% utilisation in 1 year.
	
	IXPs, Root Server or ccTLD Operators:
				- Assignment no greater than /24.
				- At least 2 peer ISPs in an IXP


Temporary IP assignemnts in the AfriNIC region
				- The activity requiring temporary IP
				  resources should be publicly
				  documented  and available,
				  preferably on a website.
					
    				- The IP resources must be returned
				  to AfriNIC after the experiment.
				- Resources are assigned on a lease
				  basis for a period of one month.
				- The assignment can be renewed after
				  providing the necessary
				  information .
				- The size of the assigned IP
				  resource will be determined from
				  the plan submitted by the
				  requesting entity.

				
Change in Policy for AS Number Assignments:

	Major change:		- An entity requesting an AS number
				  from AfriNIC must be an AfriNIC
				  member in good standing.
				
				- LIRs cannot assign AS numbers to
				  other organisations, other than
				  their own network infrastructure.
				
To contribute to the discussions about these proposals, please 
subscribe to the policy working group mailing list, by sending an 
email to policy-wg-request at afrinic.net with the subject SUBSCRIBE. 
Archives can also be found at http://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/policy-wg


Summary of discussion about the above policy proposals:
-------------------------------------------------------

o The AS number proposal did not get much discussion.

o Temporary Assignments and Experiments:

	- Some concerns about a 1 month return period being too
	  short.
	- One member mentioned that some temporary allocations tend
	  to get 'tainted' by some carriers (due to frequent
	  withdrawing and injecting of the prefix into the global
	  routing table) - though others said this is never the case.
	- A need for these allocations to come from a single large
	  reserved block.
	- Suggestion that AfriNIC asks the requestor for their
	  routing decisions/plans, and base the approval from that.
   	- Issues about the costs involved were also raised - whether
	  this is prefix-size based or a general similar fee
	  irrespective of allocation size.

o IPv4 End-User Assignments:

	- Concerns about the /24 minimum not being a good thing given
	  the rapid growth of the routing table.
	- Several people were not concerned about the routing table
	  growth, as such prefixes are usually not numerous.
	- Questions about what happens to end-user PI requests
	  between now and the next member meeting, when the policy
	  will be discussed and approved/rejected by the members.
	- The AfriNIC CEO advised that AfriNIC will enforce the
	  policy from the respective former RIR of the member, until
	  this policy is adopted by AfriNIC.

During the policy discussions, some members raised the issue about the 
need for a policy to recover unused resources in the AfriNIC region. 
This issue will be addressed by the policy working group.


Co-operation between AfriNIC and AfNOG:
--------------------------------------

AfNOG (The African Network Operators Group) has been conducting 
workshops and meetings once a year for 5 years now. It is also not 
unusual that most people attending the AfNOG workshops and meetings 
are the same people attending the AfriNIC meetings - since they 
usually represent network operators, who are usually AfriNIC members. 
Discussions were held to find a suitable way of having AfNOG and 
AfriNIC work together at these meetings. Experiences from the 
NANOG/ARIN and APRICOT/APNIC relationship were shared with the 
meeting. No major decisions were taken at the meeting, but it was 
advised that an MoU be signed between AfriNIC and AfNOG to partake 
joint organisation of the meetings, infrastructure, connectivity setup 
and other logistical requirements.


Possibility of setting up an IPv6 task force in our community
-------------------------------------------------------------

A brief discussion was held about the possibility of setting up an 
IPv6 Task Force in the African community. Many ideas were shared 
during this time. The major point of discussion was that a task-force 
may have some legal and procedural/formal implications that may not 
work well for the African community at this time. It was later decided 
that mailing lists be setup instead, and whoever is interested can 
join the forum. These mailing lists will be hosted at AfriNIC. The 
naming has not yet been decided - more about this will follow on the 
AfriNIC-discuss mailing list.


Budget for 2006/2007:
---------------------

AfriNIC's budget for the year 2006/2007 was presented to and 
consequently adopted by the members during the AGM. The voted budget 
has 491,000 USD as income, 360,908 as OPEX and 66400 of CAPEX.

Fees Schedule:
--------------

Some amendments were made by the AfriNIC Board of Directors to the 
fees schedule as follows:

o Decrease the membership-only (associate member (without any
   allocated resources) fee from 400 USD to 100 USD
o Increase in fees for Medium, Large and Extra Large membership
   categories as follows:

           Medium becomes       	6,500 USD	from 5,000 USD
           Large becomes        	13,000 USD	from 7,000 USD
           Extra Large becomes  	20,000 USD	from 15,000 USD

The AGM unanimously approved these figures.



Board Election - Renewal of Seats 5 and 6:
------------------------------------------

Seats 5 and 6 (for the Central Africa and Indian Ocean Region 
respectively) had fallen vacant. For each seat, a primary and 
alternate member is selected according to the AfriNIC by-laws. The 
members were therefore required to elect persons to fill these seats. 
An election was conducted which ended as follows:

	Central (Seat 5):

	Didier Kasole	  	CD	Primary
	Gaetan Bouraga  	GA	Alternate
	
	Indian Ocean (Seat 6):

	Viv Padayatchy  	MU	Primary
	Kenny Yiptong	  	MU	Alternate
	
	Congratulations, especially to Gaetan Bouraga, who was the
	only new person on board !



LIR TRAINING
============

AfriNIC conducted training sessions for members/LIRs and other 
interested parties. The major objective was to train ISP staff on how 
to interact with the AfriNIC whois database, and how to request 
internet resources from AfriNIC. Two sessions - English and French, 
were held at TDM, on Saturday 23rd April 2005 for the whole day. Each 
session had about 25 people. The next training event will be held in 
South Africa, and the venue and date will be confirmed later. Details 
are available on the AfriNIC training website:

http://www.afrinic.net/training/index.htm


AFRINIC-III
===========

The third AfriNIC public policy meeting will be held in Cairo, Egypt 
from 22nd-24th November 2005. Registration details and agenda will be 
online soon.

END OF MEETING.
===============

The meeting was closed at 14:30 by the AfriNIC Board Chair and the CEO.


THANKS AND GRATITUDE:
=====================

AfriNIC would like to express its full gratitude to:

o HE Prof. Dr. Venancio Massingue
o MICTI
o TV CABO Mozambique
o AfNOG secretariat
o ISOC
o Afilias

For their contribution and support to make this meeting a success.

See you all at AfriNIC-III in Cairo!!



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