[AfriNIC-rpd] Updated Version of the "IPv4 Soft Landing Policy"now Available Online

[David Conrad]

On Feb 24, 2011, at 1:03 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> I think the point Andrew is trying to make is that we are NOT all in the same boat.  There are 5 different boats, some of which are moving much more quickly to the falls than others.  As a result, attempts to come up with pieces of paper that deny folks from trying to get onto the slower moving boats aren't likely to be effective and instead, will simply result in folks sneaking on board the slower boats.
> Why is it better to allow them to overload and sink the boat

I believe you missed my point. Instead of coming up with pieces of paper folks will simply ignore, an alternative idea is to have the boats go over the falls at roughly the same time to reduce the incentive for folks to try to sneak aboard the slowest boat.

>>> The difference is that depleting AfriNIC prematurely by exporting resources to other regions makes the transition that much harder in the AfriNIC service region.
>> Sorry, how is transition made harder?
> If you don't think that a certain amount of IPv4 space is necessary to virtually any viable IPv6 transition strategy, then, you aren't paying attention. If you do, the, you should readily recognize that a lack of IPv4 space with which to deploy your transition strategy will present an additional challenge.

Sorry, still not following, so I guess I'm not "paying attention".

According to http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/rir.jpg (and assuming the laws of economics are suspended :-)), AfriNIC will be allocating IPv4 until somewhere around 2015.  This means that folks in the AfriNIC region will still be deploying IPv4 _four years_ after folks in the APNIC region have run out of IPv4 and are (hopefully) deploying IPv6-only.  You claim that this will make transition easier. Seems to me it would be encouraging folks in the AfriNIC region to delay the transition, thereby making the ultimate transition harder (since there would be more infrastructure deployed on IPv4 that would need to be transitioned).

> First, I think that much of the content consumed within the AfriNIC service region is not hosted within the region.
...
> Second, much of the content within the AfriNIC service region is intended for external consumption such as tourists and attempts to attract other international business.

I'll admit to not being convinced of your assumptions regarding the use of the Internet in the AfriNIC region (I actually suspect most traffic in the AfriNIC region is/will be produced and consumed in the AfriNIC region), however ignoring that, according to http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/rir.jpg sometime before 2013, folks in the APNIC, RIPE, and ARIN regions will have exhausted their remaining IPv4 free pools. Pragmatically speaking, this will mean folks everywhere will (we hope) need to be dealing with IPv6-only. Of what benefit would deploying new infrastructure based on IPv4 have in this situation?

Regards,
-drc