[policy-wg] Guidelines for Temporary Assignments/Allocations'sproposal

[Gregory Massel]

> In some circumstances, organisations may require IP resources for a 
> certain
> period of time, usually one month and less. This could be for exhibitions,
> conferences, conventions, etc.

This really concerns me. Assignments/Allocations generally take quite some 
time to evaluate. They are also based on a co-ordinated long-term usage 
history and future usage plan.

Once addresses are used, they can often be subject to blacklisting 
(particularly if hosts are vulnerable to hacking, spam, etc). This means 
that it is often extremely unsatisfactory for an organisation to receive 
addresses already used by another. This is exaccerbated further by the fact 
that short-term assignments don't allow extended periods to do the necessary 
audits and clean-ups.

> 3.2 Commercial Use Prohibited
>
> If there is any evidence that the temporary resource is being used for
> commercial purposes, or is being used for any activities not documented in 
> the
> original description provided above, AfriNIC reserves the right to 
> immediately
> withdraw the resource and reassign it to the free pool.

This conflicts with the statement of intent. A conference, exhibition, etc 
is generally a commercial activity. This needs to be clarified.

> Incentive:
> In Africa Internet is still a growing technology and time by time
> there are high level trainings and event related to Internet
> awareness. In most of the case the local hosting organisation
> do not have enough IP address to provide to the workshop
> Infrastructure, resulting to intensives NAT usage. To avoid this,
> AfriNIC should be able to provide temporary address space under
> some specific conditions. This policy will allow AfriNIC to do that.

There is a big problem with this motivation. It works on the basis that the 
upstream is mismanaging their existing IP space and therefore cannot supply 
it.

I would rather see the inherent problem addressed. ie. Why does the upstream 
not have sufficient addresses? Is there a problem with AfriNIC that is 
making it impossible for them to obtain sufficient address space? Are they 
in need of training on how to manage their IP's and apply for more? If so is 
AfriNIC doing enough in that regard.

I strongly object to the policy proposal. It attempting to correct one 
problem by introucing another. The better approach would be to promote 
efficient allocation and management of addresses so that LIRS have 
sufficient address space available to cope with temporary assignments.

Ultimately, if LIRs are managing their space correctly and the RIR (AfriNIC) 
is processing the LIR's requests reasonably and fairly, then the LIR should 
always have sufficient free space for temporary assignments.

--Greg