[AfriNIC-rpd] IPv6 Allocations to Non-Profit Networks

[Badru Ntege]

Comments at the end 

>       On Tue, 13 Jan 2009, Graham Beneke wrote:
>     > IPv6 Allocations to Non-Profit Networks
>     > ----------
>     > Many community and non-profit networks exist on the African
> continent
>     > and around the world...  Many of these organizations provide the
>     > services free of charge and do not have any kind of revenue
> stream.
> 
> I strongly support this policy.
> 
> This is the model under which the Internet was initially built...  IP
> addresses were allocated to those who needed them to build Internet
> infrastructure, without fees, up until the creation of the RIRs, and a
> lot
> of work got done during that time.  Notably, a lot of the work was done
> by
> individuals and small organizations that were subsequently squeezed out
> of
> the industry by large phone companies, for whom the RIR fees were not
> an
> impediment.
> 
> With IPv4 address scarcity, using fees as one of many ways of managing
> distribution of the remaining few resources seems reasonable.  Since
> IPv6
> addresses aren't scarce, and most organizations will only ever need a
> single allocation, I believe that RIRs should make them more readily
> and
> widely available, in the same way that caused the Internet to grow
> successfully in the first place.
> 
> That has to be balanced against the need for continued sufficient
> funding
> of the RIRs, of course, to manage the critical services of uniqueness,
> whois, and the in-addr delegations.
> 
> But, that said, I strongly support this policy.
> 

The challenge is how to balance the need to do good against those who might
want to abuse this policy as a means to get free resources.  And also the
luck of universal clasification in the region for the intended
beneficiaries.  A policy already exists to support entities like
universities with reduced subscription rates.  

Can't say whether i would be for or against.  I think it needs to be more
specific about the eventual benefeciaries.

regards