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

[James Blessing]

On 25/02/2011 17:23, Owen DeLong wrote:
>
> On Feb 25, 2011, at 2:04 AM, James Blessing wrote:
>> 1. Increase the income into AfriNIC, this could be used to fund educational projects and consultancy to those networks wanting to transition but without the experience or skills.
> You're talking about increasing the income by a very small amount in the proposal you submitted.
> I don't think the income you would produce would provide for more than one or two educational
> events.

Er, do you mean Andrews proposal? I did comment that he did appear to 
undervaluing the potential of the last /8

>> 3. Helps other regions who are trying to transition but are growing faster than they can migrate (Apnic)
> It  really doesn't. It's such a drop in the bucket compared to the consumption rate in any one of those
> regions, let alone their combined consumption rate that it provides almost no relief whatsoever.

For Apnic 2-3 months *might* be enough to take the edge off the 
impending doom of September, I know a single /8 is a mere a drop in the 
ocean, but a few drops of dew in the morning might just save the life of 
a man in the desert...

>> 4. Stops Africa becoming a dumping ground for all the hardware that isn't v6 capable. Potentially increasing the time before depletion as networks continue to use the 'cheap' discards from the other regions (including the address space that is handed back once v6 is the defacto choice)
> That's an interesting theory. I would have expected people in Africa to realize that buying gear that
> doesn't support IPv6 isn't in their best interest already.

Really, has the procurement strategies deployed in the rest of the world 
passed you by? How many networks are still buying Cisco 7200s as they're 
cheap? Those with the tightest budgets will always 'look for a bargain' 
and with other networks upgrading and trying to get anything they can 
for what is useless kit I can see many hardware resale opportunities 
*if* networks don't mandate IPv6 support. Comments about having enough 
IPv4 space for 5 years will make people think that non-V6 stuff is 
suitable...

>> 5. Demonstrates the Africa is forward looking, maybe the policy needs to actually put a hard stop on the allocation of IPv4 addresses (say 1st Jan 2013) pushing networks to deploy IPv6 at a greater rate than they are today
> Again, that's an interesting approach, but, it has nothing to do with the policy you've proposed or with your
> proposed changes to the soft landing policy.

Its a view point, the soft landing policy appears to be trying to extend 
the life of v4 for as long as possible which (to me) appears to be 
counter intuitive.

>> We (Limelight Networks) have been adding v6 capabilities to our services for years, our JNB pop had v6 added to it about 30 minutes after the final v4 addressing plan had been completed (only because I wanted a cup of coffee) but its only *now* that people are beginning to ask for v6 services to be turned on.
>>
> I'm not sure I see a correlation between this and any meaningful part of the policy debate.

Quite simply its taken large amounts of press coverage to get to the 
point where people are thinking about turning on v6, it still a very 
small number and many companies are still failing to consider it. By 
adopting policies that try to extend the life of v4  its having the 
opposite effect.

>> Its true AfriNIC needs to have a expiry policy, but for one I think it should actually be more about a setting a (close) hard expiry date and getting whatever value is possible out of a scarce resource rather than trying to arrange he deck chairs to make sure they don't get wet until th last second.
>>
> ROFL... I would support policy to do that. I don't think that transferring the space out of region (throwing the deck
> chairs at the other boats to follow your analogy) is the best way to gain value.

Throwing the deck chairs at other boats so that people stop thinking 
about them and concentrate on either the life boat or how to get to the 
rescue ship...

> Remember, I am the one who said:
>
> IPv4 has a TITANIC address shortage.
> IPv6 is the rescue ship.
> IPv6RD is a life boat.
> NAT is a seat cushion used for flotation.
> NAT444 is a deck chair.
> Deck chairs don't float.

If you did congrats, I've been using it for a while...

J
-- 
James Blessing
+44 7989 039 476
Strategic Relations Manager, EMEA
Limelight Networks