[Community-Discuss] Share About Cloud Innovation Ltd and their business

[Owen DeLong]

> On Jul 25, 2021, at 07:32 , Leo S <leoso at afcast.com> wrote:

> 

> About Cloud Innovation Ltd I want to talk about their business model.

> They got 7 Million IPv4 addresses from AFRINIC at a price of $10,000 USD per year, and then leased them to ISPs or end users at a price of ~2 USD/year/IPv4 (large block in 2018 if Small block may be more expensive maybe $3 USD) and with an annual increase of 15% fee from the price

> 

> So the cost is $10,000 USD

> Revenue is 7M x 2 = 14 Million

> so it’s 150000% profit

> 

> Part of the cost is spent on RIR community activities and seeking support from members, and money will be used to defeat those who oppose it. 

> Are there any people in the world who don't love money? Those who accept their money will support them in the community. and questioned any action of discussion that would be detrimental to them.

> 

> Of course, this is Lu Heng.

> He also plundered tens of thousands of IP addresses from RIPE and A few years later sold to vodafone and earned millions of dollars. He is smart and knows who should pay the money to.

> 

> 

> To rent an IP address from Cloud Innovation Ltd, you do not need to use their network services and circuits. Exactly they don't provide network service. and I think 90% of IP addresses are used in North America and Asia

> 

> 

> I don't know much about AFRINIC's policy. But in ARIN you must have a circuit or network service then you can rent an IP address from the provider.


You are wrong about ARIN policy here.

In ARIN, you cannot use addresses leased outside of connectivity services to count as utilized in consideration of application for additional space by transfer or from ARIN, but there is no policy or violation of the RSA in using your existing space in this manner.


> 

> The AFRINIC internal audit action may be detrimental to Cloud Innovation Ltd, so they started some network services in South Africa last year as Africa on cloud. but it's a small network. I think the revenue from these services may account for less than 10% of their revenue. so 90% of their revenue still from IPv4 address leasing business


This is not prohibited within the AFRINIC governing documents, so I’m not sure how this is relevant.


> It can be seen from their income that they have enough money to support the lawsuit against AFRINIC. And spend money in the community to fight for their address not to be revoked.

> very sad AFRINIC is too poor 


Apparently, according to the board, AFRINIC has untapped financial resources that they are able to utilize, so perhaps they are not so poor as you imagine and have some collection of hidden assets. If I were a member, I’d be asking detailed questions about why these assets are not reported on their financials and how they expect to get away with being opaque when they are a not-for-profit that is supposed to be transparent about such things.


> By the way, I was also their customer before


By inference, i would assume this means you didn’t disapprove of their business model at the time, at least.

Owen


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