[AfriNIC-rpd] Address Utilization Criteria

[Graham Beneke]

There were a number of discussions during AfriNIC-11 about what 
constituted utilized address space.

The are a number of policies that refer to requirement to 
announce/advertise allocated prefixes within a certain time frame. There 
also seem to be assumptions by some that an announcement automatically 
means that the prefix appears in the DFZ which is not necessarily the case.

There are also legitimate uses for globally unique addresses that would 
never result in the prefixes being announced. One example is the IXPs.

I would like to open some discussion around this with the view that we 
may need a new policy to better clarify utilized address resources.

I do not believe that there was originally an explicit requirement to 
announce all allocated IPv4 prefixes. Hence the large blocks that are 
reserved for the DoD and are to a large extent not announced on the 
global Internet.

We have a number of 'killer applications' for IPv6 that would 
legitimately use unique IPv6 addresses without ever announcing them to 
the global Internet. These include smart grid technologies and RFID.

I personally feeling is that anyone that can justify the requirement and 
demonstrate that use of unique addresses should be able to receive them 
under AfriNIC policies. This would include anyone that is linking with 
as few as 2 other networks without any plans to route on the global 
internet.

Your thoughts?

-- 
Graham Beneke
E-Mail/MSN/Jabber: graham at apolix.co.za   Skype: grbeneke
VoIP: +27-87-550-1010                    Cell: +27-82-432-1873