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

[Colin Alston]

On 2009/01/13 06:26 PM Bill Woodcock wrote:
>       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.
>   

While I do agree, the 3ffe:: range was already declared for testing and 
research requirements, so I imagine the market will be free providers, 
hotspots or internet exchanges.

My problem is the following
"* The organization should provide details of peering arrangements with
at least 2 public AS's when applying for the allocation. "

Firstly, why two ASN's? This produces a boot-strapping issue since v6 
peers can be few or non-existent in many contexts. The wording though is 
"should" so this doesn't make sense as a criteria or some wording should 
be done to provide an alternate provision criteria. ie The organisation 
/must/ provide details of peering arrangements and plan to be 
multi-homed OR provide a research/project plan which outlines why this 
criteria can not be met.

Also "The organization must announce the allocation in an aggregated 
way. The organization may not sub-allocate portions of the address 
space". This will fundamentally limit the work or research that could be 
done with such an allocation, which I think is damaging to its purpose.

The other issue is the policy does not define whether an ASN will be 
provided to those organisations who apply.

-- 
Colin Alston <colin at thusa.co.za>
System Analyst, Linux & Internet Services
Thusa Business Support (Pty) Ltd