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

[David Conrad]

On Jan 13, 2009, at 8:26 AM, 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.

So, you'd be happy for (say) the Gates Foundation to not pay AfriNIC  
while a small two person commercial ISP serving some rural area in the  
bush would be subject to full freight?

Also, in my (perhaps dated) experience, few countries had a useful  
definition of "non-profit corporation".  This is why, for example,  
APNIC is actually a for-profit company, at least according to the  
Australian government.  If this remains the case, this policy would  
appear to disadvantage ISPs in countries without a non-profit legal/ 
tax status.

I'm curious: what percentage of the total cost of doing business for  
ISPs in Africa is the annual AfriNIC fees relative to the cost of  
connectivity, staff, rent, electricity, etc.?

> This is the model under which the Internet was initially built...

No it isn't.  The model under which the Internet was build (at least  
in the context of address registration) was government subsidies.   
Before the RIRs existed, the US taxpayers (via the US government) paid  
for _all_ address registration services.  That time is long past and  
we probably don't want to try to revisit it.

To be clear, this policy is asking one set of AfriNIC members (for- 
profits) to subsidize another set ("non-profits", whatever that  
means).  Long ago, APNIC looked at the same policy and decided against  
it since (a) it was felt yearly APNIC fees were such a tiny proportion  
of the total cost of providing Internet service in the AP region that  
it was nonsensical to think that waiving those fees would have a  
significant impact on the growth of the Internet in the region and (b)  
the APNIC executive council had mechanisms by which fees could be  
waived.  Whether or not these considerations are relevant for the  
African region at this point in time is obviously something you all  
will need to determine.

Regards,
-drc