[Community-Discuss] [rpd] Unaddressed queries by AFRINIC during AGMM

[Owen DeLong]

> On Jun 27, 2021, at 14:24 , Noah <noah at neo.co.tz> wrote:

> 

> 

> 

> On Sat, Jun 26, 2021 at 11:57 AM Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com <mailto:owen at delong.com>> wrote:

> 

> 

> > On Jun 25, 2021, at 23:29 , Noah <noah at neo.co.tz <mailto:noah at neo.co.tz>> wrote:

> 

> > My question to AFRINIC, do your resource members justification for IPv4 needs, include that of running IPv4 Leasing? 

> 

> Virtually every LIR leases addresses in one form or another. 

> 

> I do not know of any LIR that leases addresses. But I know of LIR's across this continent who provide services such as Direct Internet Access, MPLS services, Transit Services, Hosting Services, DNS services and in order for the LIR to deliver the service to a wide range of downstream customers in AFRICA, they assign an IPv4 address to enable communication via Open Systems Network Protocols..... AFRINIC Bylaws section 3.4 subsection (i).


Do you know of any of those LIRs that provide those services for free?

Do they pay their RIR fees out of charity, or do they recover those costs from their customers by charging some time-based fee for those services and/or any addresses provided with those services?

If they are charging a fee over time for addresses whether that fee is built into the price of other services or billed separately, then they are leasing addresses. Claiming otherwise shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the meaning of the term lease.

Are you really telling me that none of the LIRs you know charge extra for address allocations beyond some basic minimum in every tier of service they provide? Really? It’s an awfully common phenomenon outside of Africa. I admit I can’t point to a specific LIR in Africa which does, but this is primarily because I haven’t really priced such services in Africa as all of my infrastructure efforts in Africa have been on behalf of companies operating on a BYOA basis, usually bringing addresses into Africa from other regions. (For example, most Akamai infrastructure in Africa while I worked there was numbered using RIPE resources).


> 3.4) The Company shall have, both within and outside the Republic of Mauritius, full capacity to carry and/or undertake any business or activity, including but not limited to the following objects:

> to provide the service of allocating and registering Internet resources for the purposes of enabling communications via open system network protocols and to assist in the development and growth of the Internet in the African region;

> And Another reading for your Owen... please refer to the link below...


That talks about what AFRINIC can do. It does not create a limitation on what resource members can do with their resources.


> https://www.afrinic.net/community/783-isplir-guidelines <https://www.afrinic.net/community/783-isplir-guidelines>

> 

> Regarding the “cost” of IP addresses, AFRINIC informs the community that IP addresses are nobody’s property and cannot be sold as a commodity. We however do understand that some ISPs may charge some fee to offset any administrative overhead incurred as a result of assigning and managing IP addresses for their customers. We recommend that any such charges should be reasonable in comparison with the membership fees charged by AFRINIC. 


This is true in every region. When a monetized transfer occurs, what is actually being sold is the rights in the registration of the IP addresses, not the addresses themselves.

Claiming to sell the addresses is akin to selling an exclusive right to 5. Integers can’t possibly be property. Otherwise, we’d have to prevent phone numbers from matching credit card numbers and we wouldn’t be able to reuse any fo those numbers for any other purpose, such as Social Security (Social Insurance, or whatever other countries call it if they have such a concept), Passport numbers, mathematical formulas, etc. Integers are used and reused every day and claiming to have any sort of exclusive ownership right in any set of them is patently absurd regardless of contractual language.

Notice that even in the language you have posted here (which is _NOT_ a binding policy document) makes a recommendation that such charges should be reasonable, but does not mandate same. This is a document which is not policy and which did not go through the PDP or any sort of approval by the membership. If you want to pretend it is binding policy, then you are supporting the idea that AFRINIC staff can make up policy as they see fit, which is a very bad and dangerous precedent to set.
 

> > Does AFRINIC have IPv4 brokers as resource members?

> 

> Are you saying that an LIR who is also a broker is not entitled to membership for some reason? 

> 

> Yes I am saying exactly that.... and again I will ask.

> 

> Do we have IPv4 brokers purporting to be an LIR (through membership) so that they go about trading allocated IPv4 addresses for 30USD?  Was this the Intention of those integers? to be traded as a commodity/product? Because if that is the case, then how about all LIR just stop building Internet infrastructure and we go about getting say 6 million IPv4 addresses from an RIR and slap 30USD and profit 1.8 billion on each address.


So let’s assume that a company operates a residential ISP in Botswana and also happens to be a registered broker trading addresses within policy in the ARIN, RIPE, and APNIC regions.

Are you saying that such an ISP should be banned from being an AFRINIC member merely because of their other business activities in other regions unrelated to their presence in Africa as an ISP?

This seems like a really bad idea from my perspective as I think AFRINIC would likely be subject to several serious legal challenges over such a situation. IANAL, but there are lawyers on this list and I invite them to comment if they don’t think such a prohibition would violate the companies act and most anti-trust regulatory frameworks in most countries.


> > Because it seems to me that folk out here are arguing that IPv4 integers themselves are meant to be some product sold at 30USD.

> 

> Whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not (and I’m not overly fond of it), the reality is that IP address registrations (not the

> addresses themselves, actually) are being bought and sold for ~30USD each every day all over the world. 

> 

> The AFRINIC CPM in section 5.7 only refers to "IPv4 Resources transfer within the AFRINIC Region". 

> 

> There is no price tag and as such, I am not aware of the 30USD price in our AFRINIC region.


Your lack of awareness does not mean that it is not happening.


> > My understanding was that the need for IPv4 was for the intergers to be used by the requester to number infrastructure for their networks/systems and their downstram customers/users so as to offer a wide range on services/products that Impact AFRICA's socio-economically and politically from, NREN, Higher Learning Institutions, Agriculture, ISP/Telecoms, Egovernment, FINTECH, SME's, Ecommerce (I know of unemployed youth leveraging the power of online platforms to forge a decent life and economically empower themselves through ecommorce, entertainment, influencers etc). The true digital transformation if you will.

> > 

> > So I really need to understand what Paul is going on about to ascertain what I view as clear misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what AFRINIC is all about.

> 

> Here’s where you lose me. I have tremendous difficulty connecting your mostly rational questions/statements above with this. Please point to the part of the bylaws,

> 

> https://www.afrinic.net/bylaws#b20-3 <https://www.afrinic.net/bylaws#b20-3>

> 

> 3.4) The Company shall have, both within and outside the Republic of Mauritius, full capacity to carry and/or undertake any business or activity, including but not limited to the following objects:

> 

> to provide the service of allocating and registering Internet resources for the purposes of enabling communications via open system network protocols and to assist in the development and growth of the Internet in the African region

> 

> See the  BOLD line that talks about development and growth of the Internet in the African region....


Yep… Let’s bold some other parts as well:

> 3.4) The Company shall have, both within and outside the Republic of Mauritius, full capacity to carry and/or undertake any business or activity, including but not limited to the following objects:

> 

> to provide the service of allocating and registering Internet resources for the purposes of enabling communications via open system network protocols and to assist in the development and growth of the Internet in the African region

This sentence talks only about the capabilities and limitations of what AFRINIC can do. It does not provide any form of restriction on the rights or abilities of members in how they utilize their resources.


>          iii. to promote responsible management of Internet resources throughout the African region, as well as the responsible development and          operation of Internet infrastructures;   


Again, this sentence governs actions by AFRINIC. It does not create a restriction or limitation on resource members of the organization.


> 

> See the BOLD line that refers to the operation of Internet Infrastructure ..... 


Yes, AFRINIC has a responsibility to promote the responsible development and operation of internet infrastructures. Note that the way that is written, there is a valid argument to be made that there is no regional restriction on this portion of the responsibility. The text is ambiguous at best. Nonetheless, I don’t think that AFRINIC should take on such a responsibility beyond its borders, but this does not represent any form of limitation or restriction on resource members, it represents an obligation for which the company (AFRINIC, Ltd.) is responsible.


> RSA, or CPM that constrains number usage to things which impact AFRICA socio-economically or politically.

> 

> Is it safe to say that growth of Internet in the AFRICAN region and the operation of Internet Infrastructure in the AFRICAN region, has led to African Governments to launch eGovernment Internet based platforms that have led to better efficiency and management of public funds for instance through the Government Mobile Money Payment Systems.(political). Tourists today can apply for a travel VISA and pay online or via Mobile Money through an online Department of Immigration Platform thereby improving government efficiency.


Sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that the bylaws, RSA, and CPM are silent on the issue of using AFRINIC resources out of region with the exception of addresses issued after the beginning of phase 2 of the soft landing policy.


> Is it safe to say, because some of us took some BGP lessons from folks like APB, PFS, MT, NG, Pokui, through AFNOG, that we are leading a decent life and taking care of our families today, just like any other Internet or Systems, Software Engineers on this continent because of the Internet which has provided a lot of folks with employment.... (economics). 


Sure, but how does that create any sort of limitation on what resource members can do with the resources they have been issued?


> Is it safe to say that, folks out here, from artists posting creative content on platforms, to ecommerce merchants on for instance Instagram, to motorbike taxi apps (safeboda), to students studying online through edtech platforms, to subsistence farmers in rural Africa whose lives are being transformed through the smartphone, the Internet and mobile money, to research and education networks, to the fintech etc.... to cut the story short.


No argument with any of those things, but I’m still not seeing how this provides any sort of reference to the bylaws, CPM, or RSA which creates any sort of regional restriction on where IP addresses can be used other than those issued after the beginning of soft landing phase 2.
 

> I don’t recall seeing either of those terms in any of the three documents. It’s certainly not contained in section 6 of the bylaws.

> 

> Folks, who got what I meant, understood but I guess I have made my point above.


No, you have pretty well proven that your argument has no basis in policy. It’s a nice bed time story and all, but nothing you have provided creates any sort of binding limitation on where a resource member may or may not use their resources.


> You will never get it Owen.


I’m pretty sure that I get it better than you think. I’m all for all of those things, but the current policies in AFRINIC do not impose the restrictions you are claiming. If the community wants such restrictions, then someone needs to bring forth a policy proposal that contains them and the community needs to come to a favorable consensus about it.

The last time this was attempted, the policy achieved quite some negative consensus and was eventually abandoned. It was certainly a valiant effort by the author and the few supporters it had, but nowhere near consensus.

I don’t even oppose such a policy, personally, if that’s what the community wants. I do think it would be short-sighted, likely unenforceable, and would have a number of unintended consequences (such as companies that currently number their infrastructure in Africa with resources from other regions suddenly choosing to become AFRINIC members and emptying the remaining free pool in favor of freeing those resources up to go elsewhere). However, if such a policy is proposed and gains significant support from the community, I would not personally attempt to stand in its way. I might argue against it or point out any flaws I see in it or any consequences I think it would bring, but I would not oppose it in a consensus call.

Owen

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