[AfriNIC-rpd] Policy Proposal: End user classification for Universities

[Guy Antony Halse]

On Fri 2012-06-29 (08:23), Mark Slingsby wrote:
> So what does this really effect? What else is different between a LIR and
> end user?  This only really sounds like a price issue.  Am I wrong?

Well, I can put that in context.

We currently provide Internet access free-of-charge to a number of
previously disadvantaged schools.  The schools in question don't run their
own networks; we do.  And we got there years before the Department of Basic
Education even knew what the Internet was.

In the same way, we provide free connectivity to two local museums, neither
of whom have sufficient funding to maintain their buildings and exhibits or
pay their staff, let alone pay an Internet service provider.  (Their staff
supply their own pens, since the organisation cannot afford them.)

This is done as a community-engagement activity, and is predicated on the
fact that it has a low impact on our operations and is substantially
uplifting to the local community.  It is done because it is the sort of
things (South African) universities can and (IMHO) should be doing.  Think
of it as paying it forward.

Does that make us an LIR?  We would argue about it, but in terms of the
discussion here it might.  In reality the above uses less than 0.5% of our
(legacy) IP allocation.

However, if we were classified as an LIR on the basis of these activities
and had to start paying LIR fees (in the region of ZAR 160,000/year based on
the fee structure on AfriNIC's website), there is only one possible outcome. 
And that certainly doesn't involve us paying the LIR fees...

- Guy
-- 
Systems Manager, IT Division, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
Email: G.Halse at ru.ac.za   Web: http://mombe.org/  IRC: rm-rf at irc.atrum.org
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