From alan.barrett at afrinic.net Tue Sep 11 07:11:52 2018 From: alan.barrett at afrinic.net (Alan Barrett) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2018 11:11:52 +0400 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Exchange with the Competition Commission of Mauritius Message-ID: <77CCF4EF-AA3B-4ACF-BB66-927BAEBA949B@afrinic.net> Dear AFRINIC members and community, I am now able to report on the investigation into competition issues that was started last year. AFRINIC informally approached the Competition Commission of Mauritius (CCM) in November 2017 with an inquiry about potential competition issues. In particular, we asked whether the absence of a policy for inter-regional transfer of IP address space (between AFRINIC members and members of other RIRs) was likely to be considered a violation of the Competition Act. The Competition Commission is not mandated to give advice upon request. As per the Commission?s standard screening procedures, an internal assessment was conducted to review the submissions of AFRINIC. The internal review was not shared with AFRINIC since no formal complaint had been lodged. Upon request from AFRINIC, an outline of the legal and analytical framework which could apply to the submissions was shared over an informal meeting in June 2018. Without prejudice to the Competition Commission, it was agreed that AFRINIC could report the following: In the event that a formal complaint were to be filed with the CCM, averring that economic activities within, or having an effect within Mauritius were affected by the alleged lack of a policy for inter- regional transfer of IP address space, the Executive Director could decide to enquire into the matter. Amongst other legal thresholds, the Executive Director would need to form a view on whether or not AFRINIC is an ?enterprise? under section 2 of the Competition Act 2007, and whether AFRINIC?s fees are so high as to be considered excessive. Regards, Alan Barrett CEO, AFRINIC From amelnaud at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 16:26:08 2018 From: amelnaud at gmail.com (Arnaud AMELINA) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2018 16:26:08 +0000 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Exchange with the Competition Commission of Mauritius In-Reply-To: <77CCF4EF-AA3B-4ACF-BB66-927BAEBA949B@afrinic.net> References: <77CCF4EF-AA3B-4ACF-BB66-927BAEBA949B@afrinic.net> Message-ID: Thanks Alan, i thought this was obvious and am i surprised that we spent such effort to clarify. Proponents of this issue are supposed to know the remit of Afrinic activities and how they could be regulated if need be. Regards Arnaud Le mar. 11 sept. 2018 ? 07:13, Alan Barrett a ?crit : > Dear AFRINIC members and community, > > I am now able to report on the investigation into competition issues that > was started last year. > > AFRINIC informally approached the Competition Commission of Mauritius > (CCM) in November 2017 with an inquiry about potential competition issues. > In particular, we asked whether the absence of a policy for inter-regional > transfer of IP address space (between AFRINIC members and members of other > RIRs) was likely to be considered a violation of the Competition Act. > > The Competition Commission is not mandated to give advice upon request. > As per the Commission?s standard screening procedures, an internal > assessment was conducted to review the submissions of AFRINIC. The > internal review was not shared with AFRINIC since no formal complaint had > been lodged. Upon request from AFRINIC, an outline of the legal and > analytical framework which could apply to the submissions was shared over > an informal meeting in June 2018. > > Without prejudice to the Competition Commission, it was agreed that > AFRINIC could report the following: > > In the event that a formal complaint were to be filed with the CCM, > averring that economic activities within, or having an effect within > Mauritius were affected by the alleged lack of a policy for inter- regional > transfer of IP address space, the Executive Director could decide to > enquire into the matter. Amongst other legal thresholds, the Executive > Director would need to form a view on whether or not AFRINIC is an > ?enterprise? under section 2 of the Competition Act 2007, and whether > AFRINIC?s fees are so high as to be considered excessive. > > Regards, > > Alan Barrett > CEO, AFRINIC > > > _______________________________________________ > Community-Discuss mailing list > Community-Discuss at afrinic.net > https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mark.tinka at seacom.mu Thu Sep 13 05:51:06 2018 From: mark.tinka at seacom.mu (Mark Tinka) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2018 07:51:06 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] SAFNOG-4/EANOG/tzNOG - Just Under 2 Weeks To Go! Message-ID: Hi all. This is just a reminder that with a little under 2 weeks to go the upcoming SAFNOG-4/EANOG/tzNOG meeting to be held in Dar Es Salaam, 24th - 29th September, please remember to register your attendance at http://www.safnog.org/ so you don't miss the meeting. The agenda is now up on the web site at http://www.safnog.org/#agenda with just a few slots left which are filling fast. In case you feel like you have an interesting technical and operational talk that you'd like to share with the community at this meeting, please feel free to submit it for the program committee to review as soon as possible, at: ??? https://papers.safnog.org/user/login.php?event=76 Key talks that you would be looking forward include: * Ben Roberts (Liquid Telecom), talking about the latency realities of intra-African Internet communication. * The 3 major data centre projects that are happening in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. * The DNSSEC key rollover due on 11th October, and what to look forward to, as explained by Amreesh Phokeer. * An IPv6 Deployathon 2-day workshop headed by Mukom Akong Tamon. * ... and so many more. There will be 2 social events where delegates can network, share a drink, some good food, and stand a chance to win either an iPhone X or AppleTV 4K. We have secured a special discount rate at the hotel venue for all SAFNOG/EANOG/tzNOG participants. More details are available at http://www.safnog.org/#venue . We look forward to seeing you in Dar Es Salaam. Mark Tinka On Behalf of the SAFNOG-4/EANOG/tzNOG Organising Committee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mark.tinka at seacom.mu Thu Sep 20 02:16:57 2018 From: mark.tinka at seacom.mu (Mark Tinka) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2018 04:16:57 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] SAFNOG-4/EANOG/tzNOG: 4 Days To Go! Message-ID: <3c51660f-71d1-aa38-46a0-27f245ac2404@seacom.mu> Hi all. With just about 4 days to go until the 4th edition of the SAFNOG meeting, in collaboration with EANOG and tzNOG, we are geared for an exciting week in warm & sunny Dar Es Salaam. The agenda will cover key topics for the region, such as: * Is Africa's continued telecommunications investment into Europe wise for the continent? * Data centre infrastructure development in the region. * What the recent IRR changes at RIPE mean for Africa. * The advances of IPv4 brokers into Africa, using AFRINIC very own resources in doing so. * e.t.c. More details about the meeting, registration, venue and agenda at: ??? http://www.safnog.org/ If you haven't yet, please register your attendance to join us next week. We look forward to seeing you all there. Cheers, Mark Tinka On Behalf of the SAFNOG-4/EANOG/tzNOG Organizing Committee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From madomey at hotmail.com Sat Sep 22 17:13:30 2018 From: madomey at hotmail.com (Marcus K. G. Adomey) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2018 17:13:30 +0000 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Future of AfriNIC Discussed at IWEEK 2018 Message-ID: Hello, There was a session at IWEEK 2018 on AFRINiC future. A session requested by ISPA members to discuss AFRINIC future [1] Can AFRINIC officials who attended the session tell us what transpired from the session? Why is AFRINIC future so important for ISPA members to demand a session on the topic at IWEEK? Thanks Marcus [1] https://iweek.org.za/session/the-future-of-afrinic/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dewole at tinitop.com Sun Sep 23 03:07:49 2018 From: dewole at tinitop.com (Adewole Ajao) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2018 04:07:49 +0100 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Future of AfriNIC Discussed at IWEEK 2018 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Marcus, I happened to be attending AfPIF and like most AFRINIC community members was curious about the session so I attended. I believe any AFRINIC staff that attended also did so primarily as curious community members; It appeared they were not invited in any official capacity (but I may be wrong). I did not take any notes but if memory serves me correctly, I can summarize as follows: The presenter expressed concerns about the current state of AFRINIC's board of Directors and the fact that a quorum of elected directors is required to convene an AGM, conduct elections, etc etc. He expressed concerns about some of his questions not being answered by the board, about slow processing of requests by AFRINIC staff, large IT department, travel budgets being expended, the PDP, and other issues he has raised in the past. He charged the ISPA members to be more active since they make up a large percentage of AFRINIC's revenue base. Others spoke of low technical proficiency of AFRINIC staff when evaluating requests for additional resources (in their own view) and requests for paperwork to justify resource requests. There was also talk of calling for an SGMM to deal with the governance(?) issues raised. In response, some members present declared that a better solution would be to assist the technical staff and help them understand their network designs, encourage more qualified people to run for board positions rather than criticize from afar, etc etc. I would say it was an interesting show and would encourage that more AFRINIC members gather in their local regions to discuss the improvement of the RIR and the services being offered to them. The session could have had a different outcome but because several people were passionate enough to speak their minds openly and challenge what they did not think was accurate, I think it was productive. I also believe that by now, the AFRINIC staff would already be applying the feedback received to improve existing processes. Something that makes me curious however is this: Do members in other regions not request resources from AFRINIC? Are others not suffering poor services or do they just keep quiet about it? I know the response to my next question will be that some of the stats are available at https://www.afrinic.net/en/services/statistics using data from ftp://ftp.afrinic.net/pub/stats/afrinic but I think it would be useful for those of us with limited technical capacity if the AFRINIC IT team could provide a web page that shows: Political map of Africa and Indian Ocean region with - Number of new member allocation/assignment requests this month - Number of additional resource requests this month - Number of technical support tickets created this month - Number of technical support tickets resolved this month - Any other visualizations that we think could be useful to make those statistics more useful to the rest of us. Not bar graphs and line charts, please! Ideally, a visitor should be able to change the timeframe to reflect a specific day, week, month, year, etc. We could even throw in a heat map for existing membership numbers and resource allocation/assignments. The intention is not to polarize the community further but to help everyone (regardless of their technical capability and where they are) appreciate the services being offered by the RIR. Okay it's time for you all to go to my paypal donate link for the iWeek reporting service I just offered :-p Have a productive week ahead! Regards, Dewole. On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 6:15 PM Marcus K. G. Adomey wrote: > Hello, > > There was a session at IWEEK 2018 on AFRINiC future. A session requested > by ISPA members to discuss AFRINIC future [1] > > Can AFRINIC officials who attended the session tell us what transpired > from the session? > > Why is AFRINIC future so important for ISPA members to demand a session on > the topic at IWEEK? > > Thanks > > > > Marcus > > > > [1] https :// > iweek.org.za > /session/ > the-future-of-afrinic > / > > > > _______________________________________________ > Community-Discuss mailing list > Community-Discuss at afrinic.net > https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mark.tinka at seacom.mu Mon Sep 24 05:33:20 2018 From: mark.tinka at seacom.mu (Mark Tinka) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 07:33:20 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] SAFNOG-4/EANOG/tzNOG: Live Stream The Conference Now! Message-ID: <8d27fbb7-2cd8-97ae-6f31-a4b381a121a2@seacom.mu> Hello all. For those who would like to attend the meeting remotely, the live stream for the conference is now available on our web site: ??? http://www.safnog.org/ We look forward to you joining us online. Cheers, Mark Tinka On Behalf of the SAFNOG-4/EANOG/tzNOG Organizing Committee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From christianbope at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 10:24:23 2018 From: christianbope at gmail.com (Bope Christian) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 12:24:23 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Dissolution of Fees Review Committee and Way Forward Message-ID: Dear AFRINIC members and community, The AFRINIC Board constituted a Fees Review Committee in January 2017. The Committee?s main task was to make recommendations to the Board regarding fees and related matters. The Committee made those recommendations in a report that was published in May 2018 at >. The task of the Fees Review Committee has been completed, and the Board has decided to dissolve the committee. We thank the committee members for their service. The Board will continue to consider a new fee structure similar to that proposed by the Fees Review Committee. Changes will be made to take into account comments that have been made since the proposal was published. The Board plans for the new fees to take effect in July 2019, to give adequate time for communication with members. Best Regards, Christian D. Bope, PhD Chairman, AFRINIC Board -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 833 bytes Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP URL: From alan.barrett at afrinic.net Mon Sep 24 14:24:11 2018 From: alan.barrett at afrinic.net (Alan Barrett) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 17:24:11 +0300 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Future of AfriNIC Discussed at IWEEK 2018 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5E46E4FF-1AEC-4DF7-89BD-1A087A3691F6@afrinic.net> > On 22 Sep 2018, at 20:13, Marcus K. G. Adomey wrote: > > Hello, > > There was a session at IWEEK 2018 on AFRINiC future. A session requested by ISPA members to discuss AFRINIC future [1] > > Can AFRINIC officials who attended the session tell us what transpired from the session? > > Why is AFRINIC future so important for ISPA members to demand a session on the topic at IWEEK? AFRINIC was not formally invited to participate, but I heard about it and I attended. Here are some of the topics that were mentioned by Andrew Alston: * The perceived difficulty of obtaining number resources from AFRINIC. Some people find the service slow, and the amount of information requested by AFRINIC hostmaster staff to be excessive, while others have had good experience. * Concerns around the last call on the audit policy proposal, where consensus was declared in spite of many objections, and it was later overturned on appeal. * The fact that there had been no transfer to the strategic cash reserve in the first half of 2018. * The lack of engagement from South African members, who make up about 25% of AFRINIC?s membership. * The AFRINIC Bylaws are not clear about the need for departing Directors to give up their Registered Member status. * He wants AFRINIC to comply with the Mauritius Code of Corporate Governance. * He says that the AGMM was not held legally because of documents not distributed in advance. * He says the Board brushed aside his questions at the AGMM. * Quorum for the next AGMM cannot be attained because there are too few elected Directors. * He suggested that South African members have enough votes to force an SGMM in terms of Bylws article 7.6(viii); or to liquidate AFRINCI in terms of Bylaws article 7.6(ix). He also suggested that members could withold their fees. I responded about the resource allocation difficulties, and suggested another meeting where I could learn more about the perceived problems. A few people said that they had had difficulties, and a few said the process had been smooth. The general feeling is that the process is too difficult. I also talked about the AGMM quorum issue, saying that we have the ability to approach the court to hold an AGMM. Discussion from the floor did not support any of the drastic actions Andrew suggested. A few days later, I as CEO, and Christian Bope as Board Chair, met with a small number of AFRINIC members to learn more about the perceived problems with resource allocation. We received some useful suggestion for improvements that AFRINIC could make. Alan Barrett CEO, AFRINIC From christianbope at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 07:33:24 2018 From: christianbope at gmail.com (Bope Christian) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 09:33:24 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] AGMM Quorum issue Message-ID: <1096A7DE-2B00-47FC-98F6-F630BE56E31C@gmail.com> Dear AfriNIC members and community, The AfriNIC Bylaws, article 12.10(ii), gives the requirements for a quorum an of AGMM. The requirements are: 12.10(ii) The quorum for an Annual General Member meeting shall be composed of minimum of ten (10) members in person comprising: a) Four (4) Directors elected to represent a region; b) One (1) Director elected on a non-regional criterion; and c) Five (5) Resource Members. On 29 June 2018, the Chair of the Board communicated to AfriNIC community at Large their intention to approach the court to call an AGMM ,?https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/community-discuss/2018-June/002510.html . The AfriNIC Board has resolved to use the provision under article 118 of the Mauritius Companies Act and approach the Court to have the AGMM called. Best Regards, Christian D. Bope, PhD Chairman, AfriNIC Board -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 833 bytes Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP URL: From dabu.sifiso at yandex.com Tue Sep 25 09:56:09 2018 From: dabu.sifiso at yandex.com (Dabu Sifiso) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 04:56:09 -0500 Subject: [Community-Discuss] AGMM Quorum issue In-Reply-To: <1096A7DE-2B00-47FC-98F6-F630BE56E31C@gmail.com> References: <1096A7DE-2B00-47FC-98F6-F630BE56E31C@gmail.com> Message-ID: <18795001537869369@iva7-ddadfcd6463f.qloud-c.yandex.net> Glad to hear this is finally moving forward and will hopefully get resolved. Can Mauritian court act fast enough to process this type of request so that the AGMM can be call on time for the next meeting in Tunis? Or is the plan to have the AGMM held somewhere else once the court has sorted out the details? 25.09.2018, 02:36, "Bope Christian" : > Dear AfriNIC members and community, > > The AfriNIC Bylaws, article 12.10(ii), gives the requirements for a quorum an of AGMM. ?The requirements are: > > 12.10(ii) The quorum for an Annual General Member meeting shall be composed of minimum of ten (10) members in person comprising: > a) ???Four (4) Directors elected to represent a region; > b) ???One (1) Director elected on a non-regional criterion; and > c) ???Five (5) Resource Members. > > On 29 June 2018, the Chair of the Board communicated to AfriNIC community at Large their intention to approach the court to call an AGMM ,?https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/community-discuss/2018-June/002510.html. > > The AfriNIC Board has resolved to use the provision under article 118 of the Mauritius Companies Act and approach the Court to have the AGMM called. > > Best Regards, > Christian D. Bope, PhD > Chairman, AfriNIC Board > > , > > _______________________________________________ > Community-Discuss mailing list > Community-Discuss at afrinic.net > https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss From christian.bope at unikin.ac.cd Wed Sep 26 06:24:26 2018 From: christian.bope at unikin.ac.cd (Christian Bope) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 08:24:26 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] AGMM Quorum issue In-Reply-To: <18795001537869369@iva7-ddadfcd6463f.qloud-c.yandex.net> References: <1096A7DE-2B00-47FC-98F6-F630BE56E31C@gmail.com> <18795001537869369@iva7-ddadfcd6463f.qloud-c.yandex.net> Message-ID: Dear Dabu, I do acknowledge the receipt of your email. Best Regards, Christian D. Bope, PhD Chairman, AfriNIC Board Le mar. 25 sept. 2018 ? 12:03, Dabu Sifiso a ?crit : > > > > Glad to hear this is finally moving forward and will hopefully get > resolved. > > Can Mauritian court act fast enough to process this type of request so > that the AGMM can be call on time for the next meeting in Tunis? > Or is the plan to have the AGMM held somewhere else once the court has > sorted out the details? > > > > 25.09.2018, 02:36, "Bope Christian" : > > Dear AfriNIC members and community, > > > > The AfriNIC Bylaws, article 12.10(ii), gives the requirements for a > quorum an of AGMM. The requirements are: > > > > 12.10(ii) The quorum for an Annual General Member meeting shall be > composed of minimum of ten (10) members in person comprising: > > a) Four (4) Directors elected to represent a region; > > b) One (1) Director elected on a non-regional criterion; and > > c) Five (5) Resource Members. > > > > On 29 June 2018, the Chair of the Board communicated to AfriNIC > community at Large their intention to approach the court to call an AGMM , > https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/community-discuss/2018-June/002510.html > . > > > > The AfriNIC Board has resolved to use the provision under article 118 of > the Mauritius Companies Act and approach the Court to have the AGMM called. > > > > Best Regards, > > Christian D. Bope, PhD > > Chairman, AfriNIC Board > > > > , > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Community-Discuss mailing list > > Community-Discuss at afrinic.net > > https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Community-Discuss mailing list > Community-Discuss at afrinic.net > https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From madomey at hotmail.com Wed Sep 26 20:55:32 2018 From: madomey at hotmail.com (Marcus K. G. Adomey) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 20:55:32 +0000 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Future of AfriNIC Discussed at IWEEK 2018 In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: Dear Dewole, Thanks for your quick response. I find it bizarre that you did not report or bring to the attention of this community on what happen during the session on AFRINIC future at WEEK 2018, session you attended and which raised some questions in your mind, but was prompt to jump in with "your answers" when a request was sent to AFRINIC officials to inform the community as the topic is delicate. Marcus ________________________________ From: Adewole Ajao Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2018 3:07 AM To: Marcus K. G. Adomey Cc: General Discussions of AFRINIC Subject: Re: [Community-Discuss] Future of AfriNIC Discussed at IWEEK 2018 Hi Marcus, I happened to be attending AfPIF and like most AFRINIC community members was curious about the session so I attended. I believe any AFRINIC staff that attended also did so primarily as curious community members; It appeared they were not invited in any official capacity (but I may be wrong). I did not take any notes but if memory serves me correctly, I can summarize as follows: The presenter expressed concerns about the current state of AFRINIC's board of Directors and the fact that a quorum of elected directors is required to convene an AGM, conduct elections, etc etc. He expressed concerns about some of his questions not being answered by the board, about slow processing of requests by AFRINIC staff, large IT department, travel budgets being expended, the PDP, and other issues he has raised in the past. He charged the ISPA members to be more active since they make up a large percentage of AFRINIC's revenue base. Others spoke of low technical proficiency of AFRINIC staff when evaluating requests for additional resources (in their own view) and requests for paperwork to justify resource requests. There was also talk of calling for an SGMM to deal with the governance(?) issues raised. In response, some members present declared that a better solution would be to assist the technical staff and help them understand their network designs, encourage more qualified people to run for board positions rather than criticize from afar, etc etc. I would say it was an interesting show and would encourage that more AFRINIC members gather in their local regions to discuss the improvement of the RIR and the services being offered to them. The session could have had a different outcome but because several people were passionate enough to speak their minds openly and challenge what they did not think was accurate, I think it was productive. I also believe that by now, the AFRINIC staff would already be applying the feedback received to improve existing processes. Something that makes me curious however is this: Do members in other regions not request resources from AFRINIC? Are others not suffering poor services or do they just keep quiet about it? I know the response to my next question will be that some of the stats are available at https://www.afrinic.net/en/services/statistics using data from ftp://ftp.afrinic.net/pub/stats/afrinic but I think it would be useful for those of us with limited technical capacity if the AFRINIC IT team could provide a web page that shows: Political map of Africa and Indian Ocean region with - Number of new member allocation/assignment requests this month - Number of additional resource requests this month - Number of technical support tickets created this month - Number of technical support tickets resolved this month - Any other visualizations that we think could be useful to make those statistics more useful to the rest of us. Not bar graphs and line charts, please! Ideally, a visitor should be able to change the timeframe to reflect a specific day, week, month, year, etc. We could even throw in a heat map for existing membership numbers and resource allocation/assignments. The intention is not to polarize the community further but to help everyone (regardless of their technical capability and where they are) appreciate the services being offered by the RIR. Okay it's time for you all to go to my paypal donate link for the iWeek reporting service I just offered :-p Have a productive week ahead! Regards, Dewole. On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 6:15 PM Marcus K. G. Adomey > wrote: Hello, There was a session at IWEEK 2018 on AFRINiC future. A session requested by ISPA members to discuss AFRINIC future [1] Can AFRINIC officials who attended the session tell us what transpired from the session? Why is AFRINIC future so important for ISPA members to demand a session on the topic at IWEEK? Thanks Marcus [1] https://iweek.org.za/session/the-future-of-afrinic/ _______________________________________________ Community-Discuss mailing list Community-Discuss at afrinic.net https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dewole at tinitop.com Wed Sep 26 21:04:18 2018 From: dewole at tinitop.com (Adewole Ajao) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 22:04:18 +0100 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Future of AfriNIC Discussed at IWEEK 2018 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Are you deliberately trying to be funny? Le mer. 26 sept. 2018 ? 21:55, Marcus K. G. Adomey a ?crit : > Dear Dewole, > > Thanks for your quick response. > > I find it bizarre that you did not report or bring to the attention of > this community on what happen during the session on AFRINIC future at WEEK > 2018, session you attended and which raised some questions in your mind, > but was prompt to jump in with "your answers" when a request was sent to > AFRINIC officials to inform the community as the topic is delicate. > > > Marcus > ------------------------------ > *From:* Adewole Ajao > *Sent:* Sunday, September 23, 2018 3:07 AM > *To:* Marcus K. G. Adomey > *Cc:* General Discussions of AFRINIC > *Subject:* Re: [Community-Discuss] Future of AfriNIC Discussed at IWEEK > 2018 > > Hi Marcus, > > I happened to be attending AfPIF and like most AFRINIC community members > was curious about the session so I attended. I believe any AFRINIC staff > that attended also did so primarily as curious community members; It > appeared they were not invited in any official capacity (but I may be > wrong). I did not take any notes but if memory serves me correctly, I can > summarize as follows: > > The presenter expressed concerns about the current state of AFRINIC's > board of Directors and the fact that a quorum of elected directors is > required to convene an AGM, conduct elections, etc etc. He expressed > concerns about some of his questions not being answered by the board, about > slow processing of requests by AFRINIC staff, large IT department, travel > budgets being expended, the PDP, and other issues he has raised in the > past. He charged the ISPA members to be more active since they make up a > large percentage of AFRINIC's revenue base. Others spoke of low technical > proficiency of AFRINIC staff when evaluating requests for additional > resources (in their own view) and requests for paperwork to justify > resource requests. There was also talk of calling for an SGMM to deal with > the governance(?) issues raised. > > In response, some members present declared that a better solution would be > to assist the technical staff and help them understand their network > designs, encourage more qualified people to run for board positions rather > than criticize from afar, etc etc. > > I would say it was an interesting show and would encourage that more > AFRINIC members gather in their local regions to discuss the improvement of > the RIR and the services being offered to them. The session could have had > a different outcome but because several people were passionate enough to > speak their minds openly and challenge what they did not think was > accurate, I think it was productive. I also believe that by now, the > AFRINIC staff would already be applying the feedback received to improve > existing processes. > > Something that makes me curious however is this: Do members in other > regions not request resources from AFRINIC? Are others not suffering poor > services or do they just keep quiet about it? > > I know the response to my next question will be that some of the stats are > available at https://www.afrinic.net/en/services/statistics using data > from ftp://ftp.afrinic.net/pub/stats/afrinic but I think it would be > useful for those of us with limited technical capacity if the AFRINIC IT > team could provide a web page that shows: > > Political map of Africa and Indian Ocean region with > - Number of new member allocation/assignment requests this month > - Number of additional resource requests this month > - Number of technical support tickets created this month > - Number of technical support tickets resolved this month > - Any other visualizations that we think could be useful to make those > statistics more useful to the rest of us. Not bar graphs and line charts, > please! > > Ideally, a visitor should be able to change the timeframe to reflect a > specific day, week, month, year, etc. We could even throw in a heat map for > existing membership numbers and resource allocation/assignments. The > intention is not to polarize the community further but to help everyone > (regardless of their technical capability and where they are) appreciate > the services being offered by the RIR. > > Okay it's time for you all to go to my paypal donate link for the iWeek > reporting service I just offered :-p > > Have a productive week ahead! > > Regards, > Dewole. > > > On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 6:15 PM Marcus K. G. Adomey > wrote: > > Hello, > > There was a session at IWEEK 2018 on AFRINiC future. A session requested > by ISPA members to discuss AFRINIC future [1] > > Can AFRINIC officials who attended the session tell us what transpired > from the session? > > Why is AFRINIC future so important for ISPA members to demand a session on > the topic at IWEEK? > > Thanks > > > > Marcus > > > > [1] https :// > iweek.org.za > /session/ > the-future-of-afrinic > / > > > > _______________________________________________ > Community-Discuss mailing list > Community-Discuss at afrinic.net > https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From coenraad at zenzeleni.net Fri Sep 28 10:26:27 2018 From: coenraad at zenzeleni.net (Coenraad Loubser) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2018 12:26:27 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion Message-ID: Dear AfriNIC community According to the ITU (2017) Africa has 739 million individuals without access to internet infrastructure. We write to you representing 70 individual community networks from 30 African countries, most whom are not yet AfriNIC members, but who each have part of the solution to making available access to these areas where there is very little formal economic activity and where no alternative options exist, and where the internet can play a vital enabling role. This letter has been under discussion during the past 4 months, and has been the subject of almost 100 messages on external community networks forums. There is a class of Internet Service Provider that is not recognized by AfriNIC. In order to allow us to draw in their resources to help building out the invaluable resource that is the internet, as part of the AfriNIC community, we would like to discuss a mutually beneficial proposal that will play a huge role in setting up the next generation of ISPs in Africa - and promote an excellent platform for ISP- and IPv6 training. We first contemplated proposing a definition for a Community Network or Non-Profit ISP, but having also worked with many small and competent ISPs, we recognize their challenges and the benefits that having them in this community can bring. We would therefore like to propose, in line with simplest change possible, the following additional amendment to the fee schedule that has been under discussion: 3.6.5 An entity with annual revenues less than USD 350 000 that is required to register as an LIR, such as a Wireless User Group, Community Network or ISP will qualify for an additional discount of 40%. Basic modelling shows that this can potentially require AfriNIC to give up up to $40k annually, but could yield a surplus in excess of $100k annually after a few years as these networks mature. Alternately, a profit based model, which has not been explored as thoroughly: 3.6.5 An entity with annual profits of less than USD 100 000 that is required to register as an LIR, such as a Wireless User Group, Community Network or ISP, will qualify for a discount of 75%. Regards -- Coenraad Loubser Co Authored by Dr. Carlos Rey-Moreno Office: <+27435552028> +27 (0)43 555 2028 <+27435552028> Mobile: +27 (0) 73 772 1223 <+27737721223> Skype: coenraad_loubser Twitter: @dagelf *Zenzeleni Networks NPC *zenzeleni.net - Best Innovation with Social Impact Award winner, Innovation Bridge 2017 - Community Favorite, Mozilla Equal Rating Innovation Challenge 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTPSWMX26M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com Fri Sep 28 12:22:46 2018 From: Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com (Andrew Alston) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2018 12:22:46 +0000 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Coenraad, While personally as a member I don?t have a major issue with something like this ? there are certain fundamental questions that need to be asked from my view point 1. How will the annual revenues of these entities be verified ? will they be submitting audited financials each and every year to qualify for the discount? Without audited financials ? what is to stop wholesale abuse of a system like this? 2. Would we not be better off looking at a flat fee structure across ALL organisations (which would at current levels average out at less than $4.5k per party to achieve current revenue levels with the current membership base) 3. In one line you refer to revenues, it another line you refer to annual profits. If we are working on revenue levels ? that may be workable ? if we are working on profit levels ? that simply isn?t. The reality is ? there are many LARGE organisations out there that have bad years ? and turn a net loss ?I can show plenty of listed companies who have shown a net loss come year end. So ? this would need to be clarified as well Thoughts? Andrew From: Coenraad Loubser Sent: 28 September 2018 13:26 To: community-discuss at afrinic.net Cc: S Moonesamy ; Bope Christian Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion Dear AfriNIC community According to the ITU (2017) Africa has 739 million individuals without access to internet infrastructure. We write to you representing 70 individual community networks from 30 African countries, most whom are not yet AfriNIC members, but who each have part of the solution to making available access to these areas where there is very little formal economic activity and where no alternative options exist, and where the internet can play a vital enabling role. This letter has been under discussion during the past 4 months, and has been the subject of almost 100 messages on external community networks forums. There is a class of Internet Service Provider that is not recognized by AfriNIC. In order to allow us to draw in their resources to help building out the invaluable resource that is the internet, as part of the AfriNIC community, we would like to discuss a mutually beneficial proposal that will play a huge role in setting up the next generation of ISPs in Africa - and promote an excellent platform for ISP- and IPv6 training. We first contemplated proposing a definition for a Community Network or Non-Profit ISP, but having also worked with many small and competent ISPs, we recognize their challenges and the benefits that having them in this community can bring. We would therefore like to propose, in line with simplest change possible, the following additional amendment to the fee schedule that has been under discussion: 3.6.5 An entity with annual revenues less than USD 350 000 that is required to register as an LIR, such as a Wireless User Group, Community Network or ISP will qualify for an additional discount of 40%. Basic modelling shows that this can potentially require AfriNIC to give up up to $40k annually, but could yield a surplus in excess of $100k annually after a few years as these networks mature. Alternately, a profit based model, which has not been explored as thoroughly: 3.6.5 An entity with annual profits of less than USD 100 000 that is required to register as an LIR, such as a Wireless User Group, Community Network or ISP, will qualify for a discount of 75%. Regards -- Coenraad Loubser Co Authored by Dr. Carlos Rey-Moreno Office: +27 (0)43 555 2028 Mobile: +27 (0) 73 772 1223 Skype: coenraad_loubser Twitter: @dagelf Zenzeleni Networks NPC zenzeleni.net - Best Innovation with Social Impact Award winner, Innovation Bridge 2017 - Community Favorite, Mozilla Equal Rating Innovation Challenge 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTPSWMX26M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sm+afrinic at elandsys.com Fri Sep 28 15:05:13 2018 From: sm+afrinic at elandsys.com (S Moonesamy) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2018 08:05:13 -0700 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20180928064821.0b8ba748@elandnews.com> Hi Coenraad, At 03:26 AM 28-09-2018, Coenraad Loubser wrote: >According to the ITU (2017) Africa has 739 million individuals >without access to internet infrastructure. > >We write to you representing 70 individual community networks from >30 African countries, most whom are not yet AfriNIC members, but who >each have part of the solution to making available access to these >areas where there is very little formal economic activity and where >no alternative options exist, and where the internet can play a >vital enabling role. > >This letter has been under discussion during the past 4 months, and >has been the subject of almost 100 messages on external community >networks forums. > >There is a class of Internet Service Provider that is not recognized >by AfriNIC. In order to allow us to draw in their resources to help >building out the invaluable resource that is the internet, as part >of the AfriNIC community, we would like to discuss a mutually >beneficial proposal that will play a huge role in setting up the >next generation of ISPs in Africa - and promote an excellent >platform for ISP- and IPv6 training. > >We first contemplated proposing a definition for a Community Network >or Non-Profit ISP, but having also worked with many small and >competent ISPs, we recognize their challenges and the benefits that >having them in this community can bring. Thank you for providing feedback on fees proposal. The objective, as explained above, is to cater for entities which provide internet access in areas where there is very little formal economic activity and no alternative options exists. My reading of the proposed amendments is that they are much broader than that. >3.6.5 An entity with annual revenues less than USD 350 000 that is >required to register as an LIR, such as a Wireless User Group, >Community Network or ISP will qualify for an additional discount of 40%. > >Basic modelling shows that this can potentially require AfriNIC to >give up up to $40k annually, but could yield a surplus in excess of >$100k annually after a few years as these networks mature. Is the model (USD 40,000 decrease in revenue) based on figures from members of the community which you represent or do the figures cover all Afrinic members? Regards, S. Moonesamy From coenraad at zenzeleni.net Fri Sep 28 21:07:11 2018 From: coenraad at zenzeleni.net (Coenraad Loubser) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2018 23:07:11 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Andrew, thanks for your comments. 2018-09-28 14:22 GMT+02:00 Andrew Alston : > Coenraad, > > > > While personally as a member I don?t have a major issue with something > like this ? there are certain fundamental questions that need to be asked > from my view point > > > > 1. How will the annual revenues of these entities be verified ? will > they be submitting audited financials each and every year to qualify for > the discount? Without audited financials ? what is to stop wholesale abuse > of a system like this? > > Of course this is only workable with audited - or at least financials reviewed by an industry professional, or whatever AfriNIC would accept as authoritative. > > 1. > 2. Would we not be better off looking at a flat fee structure across > ALL organizations (which would at current levels average out at less than > $4.5k per party to achieve current revenue levels with the current > membership base) > > This is more or less what fees would come to under the current structure. While this is a negligible amount for a large organization, it is prohibitive to the ones starting up - whom are in their formative years and *would be easier to influence into doing things the right way right from the start, as part of this community - which would be the ultimate purpose of this.* > 1. > 2. In one line you refer to revenues, it another line you refer to > annual profits. If we are working on revenue levels ? that may be workable > ? if we are working on profit levels ? that simply isn?t. The reality is ? > there are many LARGE organizations out there that have bad years ? and turn > a net loss ?I can show plenty of listed companies who have shown a net loss > come year end. So ? this would need to be clarified as well > > My thoughts exactly, revenues is much more workable, although we were asked to include the other option. > > > Thoughts? > > > > Andrew > > > > > > *From:* Coenraad Loubser > *Sent:* 28 September 2018 13:26 > *To:* community-discuss at afrinic.net > *Cc:* S Moonesamy ; Bope Christian < > christianbope at gmail.com> > *Subject:* [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in > Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion > > > > Dear AfriNIC community > > According to the ITU (2017) Africa has 739 million individuals without > access to internet infrastructure. > > We write to you representing 70 individual community networks from 30 > African countries, most whom are not yet AfriNIC members, but who each have > part of the solution to making available access to these areas where there > is very little formal economic activity and where no alternative options > exist, and where the internet can play a vital enabling role. > > This letter has been under discussion during the past 4 months, and has > been the subject of almost 100 messages on external community networks > forums. > > > > There is a class of Internet Service Provider that is not recognized by > AfriNIC. In order to allow us to draw in their resources to help building > out the invaluable resource that is the internet, as part of the AfriNIC > community, we would like to discuss a mutually beneficial proposal that will > play a huge role in setting up the next generation of ISPs in Africa - and promote > an excellent platform for ISP- and IPv6 training. > > > > We first contemplated proposing a definition for a Community Network or > Non-Profit ISP, but having also worked with many small and competent ISPs, > we recognize their challenges and the benefits that having them in this > community can bring. > > We would therefore like to propose, in line with simplest change possible, > the following additional amendment to the fee schedule that has been > under discussion: > > > 3.6.5 An entity with annual revenues less than USD 350 000 that is > required to register as an LIR, such as a Wireless User Group, Community > Network or ISP will qualify for an additional discount of 40%. > > > Basic modelling shows that this can potentially require AfriNIC to give up > up to $40k annually, but could yield a surplus in excess of $100k annually > after a few years as these networks mature. > > Alternately, a profit based model, which has not been explored as > thoroughly: > > > 3.6.5 An entity with annual profits of less than USD 100 000 that is > required to register as an LIR, such as a Wireless User Group, Community > Network or ISP, will qualify for a discount of 75%. > > Regards > > > > -- > > Coenraad Loubser > > Co Authored by Dr. Carlos Rey-Moreno > > > > Office: +27 (0)43 555 2028 <+27435552028> > > Mobile: +27 (0) 73 772 1223 <+27737721223> > Skype: coenraad_loubser Twitter: @dagelf > > > > *Zenzeleni Networks NPC *zenzeleni.net > > - Best Innovation with Social Impact Award winner, Innovation Bridge 2017 > > - Community Favorite, Mozilla Equal Rating Innovation Challenge 2017 > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTPSWMX26M > -- Coenraad Loubser Office: <+27435552028> +27 (0)43 555 2028 <+27435552028> Mobile: +27 (0) 73 772 1223 <+27737721223> Skype: coenraad_loubser Twitter: @dagelf *Zenzeleni Networks NPC *zenzeleni.net - Best Innovation with Social Impact Award winner, Innovation Bridge 2017 - Community Favorite, Mozilla Equal Rating Innovation Challenge 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTPSWMX26M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From coenraad at zenzeleni.net Sat Sep 29 07:14:47 2018 From: coenraad at zenzeleni.net (Coenraad Loubser) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2018 09:14:47 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20180928064821.0b8ba748@elandnews.com> References: <6.2.5.6.2.20180928064821.0b8ba748@elandnews.com> Message-ID: Mr Moonesamy 2018-09-28 17:05 GMT+02:00 S Moonesamy : > Hi Coenraad, > At 03:26 AM 28-09-2018, Coenraad Loubser wrote: > >> According to the ITU (2017) Africa has 739 million individuals without >> access to internet infrastructure. >> >> We write to you representing 70 individual community networks from 30 >> African countries, most whom are not yet AfriNIC members, but who each have >> part of the solution to making available access to these areas where there >> is very little formal economic activity and where no alternative options >> exist, and where the internet can play a vital enabling role. >> >> This letter has been under discussion during the past 4 months, and has >> been the subject of almost 100 messages on external community networks >> forums. >> >> There is a class of Internet Service Provider that is not recognized by >> AfriNIC. In order to allow us to draw in their resources to help building >> out the invaluable resource that is the internet, as part of the AfriNIC >> community, we would like to discuss a mutually beneficial proposal that >> will play a huge role in setting up the next generation of ISPs in Africa - >> and promote an excellent platform for ISP- and IPv6 training. >> >> We first contemplated proposing a definition for a Community Network or >> Non-Profit ISP, but having also worked with many small and competent ISPs, >> we recognize their challenges and the benefits that having them in this >> community can bring. >> > > Thank you for providing feedback on fees proposal. The objective, as > explained above, is to cater for entities which provide internet access in > areas where there is very little formal economic activity and no > alternative options exists. My reading of the proposed amendments is that > they are much broader than that. > The main objective is to get more networks peering and using number resources properly. The ability to get great connectivity into even these areas is a good side effect, hence our proposed amendment. Connectivity in these areas are my main focus and perhaps my bias - of course even people in- or close to very developed areas have access problems. The ability to peer directly puts them in a better position to accomplish this, not only technically but also socially. > 3.6.5 An entity with annual revenues less than USD 350 000 that is >> required to register as an LIR, such as a Wireless User Group, Community >> Network or ISP will qualify for an additional discount of 40%. >> >> Basic modelling shows that this can potentially require AfriNIC to give >> up up to $40k annually, but could yield a surplus in excess of $100k >> annually after a few years as these networks mature. >> > > Is the model (USD 40,000 decrease in revenue) based on figures from > members of the community which you represent or do the figures cover all > Afrinic members? > This is based on figures from the community I represent. > > Regards, > S. Moonesamy > Appreciated -- Coenraad Loubser Office: <+27435552028> +27 (0)43 555 2028 <+27435552028> Mobile: +27 (0) 73 772 1223 <+27737721223> Skype: coenraad_loubser Twitter: @dagelf *Zenzeleni Networks NPC *zenzeleni.net - Best Innovation with Social Impact Award winner, Innovation Bridge 2017 - Community Favorite, Mozilla Equal Rating Innovation Challenge 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTPSWMX26M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sm+afrinic at elandsys.com Sat Sep 29 10:55:34 2018 From: sm+afrinic at elandsys.com (S Moonesamy) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2018 03:55:34 -0700 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion In-Reply-To: References: <6.2.5.6.2.20180928064821.0b8ba748@elandnews.com> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20180929013247.0c3bd1b0@elandnews.com> Dear Mr Loubser, At 12:14 AM 29-09-2018, Coenraad Loubser wrote: >The main objective is to get more networks peering and using number >resources properly. > >The ability to get great connectivity into even these areas is a >good side effect, hence our proposed amendment. > >Connectivity in these areas are my main focus and perhaps my bias - >of course even people in- or close to very developed areas have >access problems. The ability to peer directly puts them in a better >position to accomplish this, not only technically but also socially. One of the recommendations in the Fees Review proposal [1] is to have annual fees calculated from the exact amount of each member's IPv4, IPv6, and ASN holdings. That is meant to change the existing situation where a small change in number resource holdings may cause a move to a new category with a large change in fees. A side effect of the proposed amendments is that it could undo that change. >This is based on figures from the community I represent. Thank you for the information. Afrinic Ltd has 1637 members. It may not be feasible to have an analysis of revenue or profit to assess the impact of the proposed amendments. There are different angles to the main objective (please see above). It might be outside the scope of the Fees Review proposal. The annual fee could have an impact on that objective, e.g. the "very little formal economic activity ..." case in your comments [2]. Section 3.6.4 of the Fees Review proposal introduces a discount for non-profit or charitable organisations. Would that cover some of the cases which you referred to in the proposed amendments, e.g. "Community Network"? Regards, S. Moonesamy 1. https://www.afrinic.net/images/doc/fees-proposal-afrinic-20180523.pdf 2. https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/community-discuss/2018-September/002566.html From madomey at hotmail.com Sat Sep 29 11:38:44 2018 From: madomey at hotmail.com (Marcus K. G. Adomey) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2018 11:38:44 +0000 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Future of AfriNIC Discussed at IWEEK 2018 In-Reply-To: <5E46E4FF-1AEC-4DF7-89BD-1A087A3691F6@afrinic.net> References: , <5E46E4FF-1AEC-4DF7-89BD-1A087A3691F6@afrinic.net> Message-ID: Dear Alan, I have carefully read your response and thank you very much. It is a fact that there is no free-problem organization, and whenever an issue arises, the approach used to address it really matter and make the solution acceptable and accepted by the community. AFRINIC EN AVANT!!! Enjoy your weekend Marcus ________________________________ From: Alan Barrett Sent: Monday, September 24, 2018 2:24 PM To: community-discuss at afrinic.net Subject: Re: [Community-Discuss] Future of AfriNIC Discussed at IWEEK 2018 > On 22 Sep 2018, at 20:13, Marcus K. G. Adomey wrote: > > Hello, > > There was a session at IWEEK 2018 on AFRINiC future. A session requested by ISPA members to discuss AFRINIC future [1] > > Can AFRINIC officials who attended the session tell us what transpired from the session? > > Why is AFRINIC future so important for ISPA members to demand a session on the topic at IWEEK? AFRINIC was not formally invited to participate, but I heard about it and I attended. Here are some of the topics that were mentioned by Andrew Alston: * The perceived difficulty of obtaining number resources from AFRINIC. Some people find the service slow, and the amount of information requested by AFRINIC hostmaster staff to be excessive, while others have had good experience. * Concerns around the last call on the audit policy proposal, where consensus was declared in spite of many objections, and it was later overturned on appeal. * The fact that there had been no transfer to the strategic cash reserve in the first half of 2018. * The lack of engagement from South African members, who make up about 25% of AFRINIC?s membership. * The AFRINIC Bylaws are not clear about the need for departing Directors to give up their Registered Member status. * He wants AFRINIC to comply with the Mauritius Code of Corporate Governance. * He says that the AGMM was not held legally because of documents not distributed in advance. * He says the Board brushed aside his questions at the AGMM. * Quorum for the next AGMM cannot be attained because there are too few elected Directors. * He suggested that South African members have enough votes to force an SGMM in terms of Bylws article 7.6(viii); or to liquidate AFRINCI in terms of Bylaws article 7.6(ix). He also suggested that members could withold their fees. I responded about the resource allocation difficulties, and suggested another meeting where I could learn more about the perceived problems. A few people said that they had had difficulties, and a few said the process had been smooth. The general feeling is that the process is too difficult. I also talked about the AGMM quorum issue, saying that we have the ability to approach the court to hold an AGMM. Discussion from the floor did not support any of the drastic actions Andrew suggested. A few days later, I as CEO, and Christian Bope as Board Chair, met with a small number of AFRINIC members to learn more about the perceived problems with resource allocation. We received some useful suggestion for improvements that AFRINIC could make. Alan Barrett CEO, AFRINIC _______________________________________________ Community-Discuss mailing list Community-Discuss at afrinic.net https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/community-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From coenraad at zenzeleni.net Sun Sep 30 01:56:17 2018 From: coenraad at zenzeleni.net (Coenraad Loubser) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2018 03:56:17 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20180929013247.0c3bd1b0@elandnews.com> References: <6.2.5.6.2.20180928064821.0b8ba748@elandnews.com> <6.2.5.6.2.20180929013247.0c3bd1b0@elandnews.com> Message-ID: Dear Mr. Moonesamy I would like to add that we wholeheartedly support the current recommendations - and that they do perhaps provide enough of a platform to address the issue. The caveat is that, for an LIR, there is still the initial hurdle to cross, that has not been "smoothed out", and which the suggested provision can "smooth out" - which I would like to unpack more. Also, the addition of a clause such as the revenue-based one proposed could potentially free up the board and/or CEO from having to consider a number of individual applications - something that could also be a restricting factor if the opportunities for such reviews are spaced too far apart, or if they turn out to be too time consuming. Ie. if an ISP is starting up, and can be convinced to get its own ASN, but has to wait some months before it can actually get it, it might just start without it and conclude that it's not really necessary - and only revisit the benefits much later when truly necessary - or never. I suppose that there is another side to this is - and that is the possibility for "fly-by-night" ASNs - or ones created to be used for nefarious purposes and then discarded. although I am not sure if there is a blanket control for the board to reject an any application, is there? Then again, going through the trouble of setting up a company, licensing it, getting the financials in place, and applying for the concession, setting up peering - is likely enough of a deterrent. 2018-09-29 12:55 GMT+02:00 S Moonesamy : > Dear Mr Loubser, > At 12:14 AM 29-09-2018, Coenraad Loubser wrote: > >> The main objective is to get more networks peering and using number >> resources properly. >> >> The ability to get great connectivity into even these areas is a good >> side effect, hence our proposed amendment. >> >> Connectivity in these areas are my main focus and perhaps my bias - of >> course even people in- or close to very developed areas have access >> problems. The ability to peer directly puts them in a better position to >> accomplish this, not only technically but also socially. >> > > One of the recommendations in the Fees Review proposal [1] is to have > annual fees calculated from the exact amount of each member's IPv4, IPv6, > and ASN holdings. That is meant to change the existing situation where a > small change in number resource holdings may cause a move to a new category > with a large change in fees. A side effect of the proposed amendments is > that it could undo that change. I see - should the revenue threshold be crossed and the discount fall away, and the cost jumps. More on this below. > > > This is based on figures from the community I represent. >> > > Thank you for the information. Afrinic Ltd has 1637 members. It may not > be feasible to have an analysis of revenue or profit to assess the impact > of the proposed amendments. > How many of those are LIR's? Of course Afrinic can't be expected to apply this pro-actively, or retrospectively, and only on a per-application basis, on the condition of receipt of the necessary financial review or audit from a qualified professional. How many members follow the mailing lists, and stay appraised of every amended policy, or attend every meeting? Is there any reason to believe that a significant of the existing members will notice - and apply - especially if it is something that they can clearly already afford? > There are different angles to the main objective (please see above). It > might be outside the scope of the Fees Review proposal. The annual fee > could have an impact on that objective, e.g. the "very little formal > economic activity ..." case in your comments [2]. Section 3.6.4 of the > Fees Review proposal introduces a discount for non-profit or charitable > organisations. Would that cover some of the cases which you referred to in > the proposed amendments, e.g. "Community Network"? > It would indeed - although it would exclude small ISPs who suffer from many of the same (lack of-) funding / start-up capital issues and are *arguably better suited to be resource users and get involved in training. * The main problem I see here is the discrepancy between LIR's and End Users - where ISPs, especially small ISPs are required to pay a premium (when considered as a percentage of their overall revenues) *while these are exactly the kind of entities that can make great allies for Afrinic in strengthening the skill base.* An ISP is just a businesses, just like an end user, with the same challenges in (lack of-) access to start-up capital as any small venture. Traditional financiers still find ISP business models unfamiliar - especially if they offer services on a pre-paid, or month-to-month basis, as in the norm in many brackets - and finding funding is even more difficult for those without a clear profit motive - which is why the non-profit clause makes a whole lot of sense and could indeed play a role in remedying this. For possible future research into the topic, I would like to share the Wireless Access Providers' Association 's Census Report, (attached, page 19 and 21) which shows how, in South Africa, in 2011, the revenue for 80% of member ISPs fell under the $350k threshold proposed - during this time I don't believe that *any* of the ISPs surveyed in this bracket, had their own resources - meaning that they were all at the mercy of the whims of bigger resellers, those being in that position purely because they had access to capital that the smaller ones didn't. Today 40% of WAPA's members still fall under the $350k threshold proposed - so in addition to the community networks we represent, these are an additional 70+ potential candidates just in South Africa - a significant number of which would be getting resources in order to peer due to the great facilities available to them. Considering the cashflow and cost models of the ISP's we've studied, and how similar they all are, and the fact that even the new proposed Afrinic fees amount to a not insignificant portion of the revenue of a small business -eg. a significant portion of the salary of a staff member (easily 50% - who would work for half pay?), and that staff is the biggest single expense and also the one on which a small ISP is least able to cut back on - this perhaps explains why almost all of these entities opt for staff instead of resources - if that was the choice... additionally their staff will have no incentive to familiarize themselves with how to manage resources and the associated peering and routing protocols if they don't have access to it in the first place - again, skills and knowledge that could benefit them - and our community as a whole - and it could benefit them in other ways too. Ie. they can implement OSPF and BGP in their networks from the get go - instead of having to duplicate work and make changes later on. Any small business with an anchor tenant, that effectively subsidizes these costs, will not have these problems - but here again, this can be seen as a bias against businesses who decide to only focus on small individual users, or a pre-paid/vouchers-only ISP. for example. >From this I hope that I am shedding more light on the potential benefits to our community as a result of having the initial hurdle to lowered. Perhaps a single discrete jump in cost, at some point - once the business has had enough time to accumulate profits or revenues, is not as big a problem as it was previously thought - because at the point of the jump, the business would likely be in a better position to raise capital, or access an overdraft facility, having a proven financial record - or ideally, at such a point, accumulated savings to dip into. Again, the existing recommendations do provide an avenue to address this, so the committee managed to come up with a way to accommodate even the unforeseen (assuming they did not foresee this), for which they can be commended. And again, thanks for your insight, attention and consideration, even considering that we did not manage to submit this during the process, and before the dissolution of the committee. > > Regards, > S. Moonesamy > > 1. https://www.afrinic.net/images/doc/fees-proposal-afrinic-20180523.pdf > 2. https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/community-discuss/2018- > September/002566.html > > -- Coenraad Loubser Office: <+27435552028> +27 (0)43 555 2028 <+27435552028> Mobile: +27 (0) 73 772 1223 <+27737721223> Skype: coenraad_loubser Twitter: @dagelf *Zenzeleni Networks NPC *zenzeleni.net - Best Innovation with Social Impact Award winner, Innovation Bridge 2017 - Community Favorite, Mozilla Equal Rating Innovation Challenge 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTPSWMX26M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WAPA Census Report 20180514.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 3039238 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sm+afrinic at elandsys.com Sun Sep 30 09:42:48 2018 From: sm+afrinic at elandsys.com (S Moonesamy) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2018 02:42:48 -0700 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion In-Reply-To: References: <6.2.5.6.2.20180928064821.0b8ba748@elandnews.com> <6.2.5.6.2.20180929013247.0c3bd1b0@elandnews.com> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20180929210513.0b91cef0@elandnews.com> Dear Mr Loubser, At 06:56 PM 29-09-2018, Coenraad Loubser wrote: >I would like to add that we wholeheartedly support the current >recommendations - and that they do perhaps provide enough of a >platform to address the issue. Thank you for the feedback on that section. >The caveat is that, for an LIR, there is still the initial hurdle to >cross, that has not been "smoothed out", and which the suggested >provision can "smooth out" - which I would like to unpack more. I'll comment below. >Also, the addition of a clause such as the revenue-based one >proposed could potentially free up the board and/or CEO from having >to consider a number of individual applications - something that >could also be a restricting factor if the opportunities for such >reviews are spaced too far apart, or if they turn out to be too time >consuming. Ie. if an ISP is starting up, and can be convinced to get >its own ASN, but has to wait some months before it can actually get >it, it might just start without it and conclude that it's not really >necessary - and only revisit the benefits much later when truly >necessary - or never. Is the time taken for getting approval for a discount a major factor for getting a new LIR to have its own ASN? It looks like the other parts of setting up the operation could take more time; I am assuming that there isn't sequential processing. >I suppose that there is another side to this is - and that is the >possibility for "fly-by-night" ASNs - or ones created to be used for >nefarious purposes and then discarded. although I am not sure if >there is a blanket control for the board to reject an any >application, is there? Then again, going through the trouble of >setting up a company, licensing it, getting the financials in place, >and applying for the concession, setting up peering - is likely >enough of a deterrent. ASN requests are handled by the member services department. The policies which are used to evaluate the requests are set by the Policy Development Working Group. I could not think of a reason to be involved in a decision about the approval of such a request. As a comment about "blanket control", the usual approach at Board-level is to see that there are adequate organizational processes. Regards, S. Moonesamy From coenraad at zenzeleni.net Sun Sep 30 21:59:09 2018 From: coenraad at zenzeleni.net (Coenraad Loubser) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2018 23:59:09 +0200 Subject: [Community-Discuss] Spearheading Internet Development in Africa / Late commentary on fee discussion In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20180929210513.0b91cef0@elandnews.com> References: <6.2.5.6.2.20180928064821.0b8ba748@elandnews.com> <6.2.5.6.2.20180929013247.0c3bd1b0@elandnews.com> <6.2.5.6.2.20180929210513.0b91cef0@elandnews.com> Message-ID: Hi Again Mr. Moonesamy 2018-09-30 11:42 GMT+02:00 S Moonesamy : > Dear Mr Loubser, > At 06:56 PM 29-09-2018, Coenraad Loubser wrote: > >> I would like to add that we wholeheartedly support the current >> recommendations - and that they do perhaps provide enough of a platform to >> address the issue. >> > > Thank you for the feedback on that section. > > The caveat is that, for an LIR, there is still the initial hurdle to >> cross, that has not been "smoothed out", and which the suggested provision >> can "smooth out" - which I would like to unpack more. >> > > I'll comment below. > > Also, the addition of a clause such as the revenue-based one proposed >> could potentially free up the board and/or CEO from having to consider a >> number of individual applications - something that could also be a >> restricting factor if the opportunities for such reviews are spaced too far >> apart, or if they turn out to be too time consuming. Ie. if an ISP is >> starting up, and can be convinced to get its own ASN, but has to wait some >> months before it can actually get it, it might just start without it and >> conclude that it's not really necessary - and only revisit the benefits >> much later when truly necessary - or never. >> > > Is the time taken for getting approval for a discount a major factor for > getting a new LIR to have its own ASN? It looks like the other parts of > setting up the operation could take more time; I am assuming that there > isn't sequential processing. > > This is not tested of course, I was just making a projection as the policy recommendation is for concessions to require board or CEO approval - a trickle might develop into a constant stream waiting for approval if we motivate each of the networks we work with to apply - but from the great responsiveness on this list it seems clear that this will not be an issue. I suppose that there is another side to this is - and that is the >> possibility for "fly-by-night" ASNs - or ones created to be used for >> nefarious purposes and then discarded. although I am not sure if there is a >> blanket control for the board to reject an any application, is there? Then >> again, going through the trouble of setting up a company, licensing it, >> getting the financials in place, and applying for the concession, setting >> up peering - is likely enough of a deterrent. >> > > ASN requests are handled by the member services department. The policies > which are used to evaluate the requests are set by the Policy Development > Working Group. I could not think of a reason to be involved in a decision > about the approval of such a request. As a comment about "blanket > control", the usual approach at Board-level is to see that there are > adequate organizational processes. > Of course. > Regards, > S. Moonesamy > I hope everyone is looking forward to welcoming many new networks into our fold - and seeing that latency between the African coasts drop - I am looking forward to see Community Networks surprise us with their role in this and other access issues. -- Coenraad Loubser Office: <+27435552028> +27 (0)43 555 2028 <+27435552028> Mobile: +27 (0) 73 772 1223 <+27737721223> Skype: coenraad_loubser Twitter: @dagelf *Zenzeleni Networks NPC *zenzeleni.net - Best Innovation with Social Impact Award winner, Innovation Bridge 2017 - Community Favorite, Mozilla Equal Rating Innovation Challenge 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTPSWMX26M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: