[IOZ] [AfriNIC-rpd] Re: Fwd: AfriNIC position on the future of IP number resources

[McTim]

On 8/10/07, Alan Levin <alan at futureperfect.co.za> wrote:
> Hi McTim,
>
> > First you want lower costs for LIRs, then you want freebies for an
> > undefined
> > number of  networks.  I would suggest that you can't have lower RIR
> > fees if you give away resources without compensating the RIR for
> > the manpower involved.
>
> The one has nothing to do with the other.
>

not sure I buy this.

> A few points to consider:
>
> - my proposal request for IPv6 allocations for community networks,
> was to be considered part of the training/education and/or marketing
> 'line items' in the budget - from my experience this cost will be
> less than a single training session for which many are planned every
> year
>
First of all what size "allocation" do you want them to get?

according to "IPv6 Provider Independent (PI) Assignment for End-Sites"

They would get an "assignment" of a /48.  Is this what you are after?

> - AfriNIC has a surplus every year which has been put into a
> 'reserves' fund. I believe that reserves fund should be reaching an
> acceptable level soon and I will advocate spending that money on
> impacting growth of Internet usage in Africa. To me that means
> supporting educational and awareness campaigns such as proposed
>

Reserves are a good thing.  IIRC, ISOC still does some funding of AfriNIC.

I don't think we can count on that forever.

> - Separate from the community networks proposal I'm still advocating
> lower prices for small and micro ISPs.

Lower than the "Very Small" category on
http://www.afrinic.net/docs/billing/afcorp-fee200703.htm?


Just as SMMEs drive economic
> growth, so small ISPs drive growth of Internet usage in Africa. I
> believe this will positively impact the AfriNIC revenues  as it
> allows ISPs that would not consider become LIRs to become ones (and
> hence it's increasing the pie, rather than decreasing the revenue or
> profits). BTW, from what I can see in RIPE, and other RIRs, drops in
> prices and not resulted in lower profitability or revenues!

I agree that more LIRs is a good goal, as is lowering fees.  I think
these are long term objectives though.

>
> > On 8/8/07, Alan Levin <alan at futureperfect.co.za> wrote:
> >> I believe that community networks often use many gateways and
> >> upstreams. It wouldn't make sense to use an assignment from one.
> >
> > Not from one, but from many. Lots of folk multihome using multiple
> > ranges.
>
> Interesting. So how does this work practically? With NATs?
>

No NATs needed. The point of having an assignment is to use public addresses.

In the spirit of "a picture is worth a thousand words", I have
attached a slide from an old RIPE training course that shows
graphically how this can be done.   Apologies for the proprietary
format.

> > They don't need PI IMHO, and I don't think they should get it for
> > free.
>
> Ok, so do you think they should pay standard rates? (What I am saying
> is that will basically exclude them from getting any)

It's up to them, they can become an LIR, get an assignment form an LIR
or becom End-Users.  I just don't think we as the community should
give freebies to an undefined group of organisations.

<snip>

>
> > Third, can you define a community network?  I give free WiFi to my
> > neighbors, does this mean I get an ASN and a PI block?
>
> If you meet the IPv6 and ASN criteria then yes (i.e. you will need to
> have a sufficient number of neighbours like the guys in Scarborough
> who connected up the whole village and now have more than 100
> neighbours on their network.)

ok, then what is sufficient number?

>
> >>> 3) How many hosts does the WUG network run?
> >>
<snip>

>
> > If we want a strong, useful RIR, folk have to pay for it.
>
> Yes. If the big ISPs/networks in Africa were embracing IPv6 I would
> say that we don't need this. If they did less NATs and more v6
> training / support / R&D I would agree that the idea of sponsoring
> community networks has less weight, but these big networks don't see
> the need. Most have more than enough v4 space to outlast the RIRs..
> so they care less...

I'm not sure this is the case.

>
> > It was always going to be more expensive to start an RIR.  Using the
> > resources of an established RIR allowed the costs to be spread over a
> > much wider LIR base.
>
> We should have lower costs and sufficient economies of scale to be
> able to offer similar pricing. Keep in mind that the price for x-
> large members is the same (assuming they pay in time) as ARINs,
> whereas there is no micro category in AfriNIC. If we want to see
> growth in AfriNIC revenues X-Large AfriNIC members - who pay vastly
> cheaper prices per /24 - in Africa should be paying more whereas
> smaller ones should be paying less.
>

If you want to see a micro (smaller than Very Small) then propose that.

Keep in mind the minimum allocation size(s) though.

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
$ whois -h whois.afrinic.net mctim
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