[AfriNIC-rpd] IPv4 BoF report

[Andrew Alston]

Hi Alain and others, 

> 1- The points are  not listed by preference or priority.

> 2- Bigger players from other regions  have more impact on IANA pool exhaustion 
> which will affect our region.

> So what to do to get our operators and users to avoid   the surprise which  
> may be the non availability of ressources in AfriNIC pool when IANA's pool 
> will be exhausted.

Ok, now THOSE are points that I can see.  How do we avoid the surprise... the fact is, this is about constant awareness.  I don't believe that attempting to lengthen the life of IPv4 will help avoid the surprise, if anything it will give people a false sense of security that it can be lengthened.  Is it not just time to say lets face it, if we're lucky, we have 30 months left of v4 space, therefore it becomes a case of pure v6 promotion rather than wasting resources attempting to rework already allocated v4 space.  

How about we start for example promoting the use of internal v6 with 6to4 edge gateways as a replacement to NAT for people who cant get native v6 from their ISP, but can run v6 internally.  That means that they could get their P.I blocks so long if their ISP's wont assign PA and when they are ready to do so, they could announce them, until such time, they can use it internally and translate to the outside world.  Even the ISPs that ARENT ready to actively announce their v6 and use it to their edges could at least start assigning for this purpose for people who don’t need P.I space.  (The ISP's in South Africa for example might not be ready to roll v6 to their customers, but they have LIR blocks, why not assign!)

Let's stop attempting to solve the problems of the past... as with life support systems, there comes a point where you have to sadly turn off the life support and move on, v4 is at that point in my belief, lets concentrate on the future, not the past.

Just my opinions, however radical they may seem :)

Andrew