[AfriNIC-rpd] Definitions of LIR versus End User

[Sunday Folayan]

Andrew,

You and I elected a Board. They are representatives of the community, 
knowledgeable and of course, they have a responsibility. They should be 
left to carry it out. We do not need to query all expenditures like 
Travels, Lobbying, ICANN, IP Research, Trainings, Linkages, leap-frog 
Technologies, etc. After that, we will being to argue about impact 
assessment, priorities, Per $ contribution of AfriNIC to fighting Sahara 
desert encroachment etc etc etc.

I think this route is poisonous, lets exit the loop.

Please note that I am not saying people should not be accountable, nor 
should we not raise legitimate queries. I just believe we should 
exercise discretion when necessary.

Sunday.


On 21/07/2012 20:54, Andrew Alston wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Sorry, just a correction to my below email.  I referred to the 
> financials presented in Ghana, I meant to say Gambia.
>
> Thanks
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 9:34 PM, Andrew Alston 
> <alston.networks at gmail.com <mailto:alston.networks at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi All,
>
>     I've been sitting thinking about this a fair bit, and perhaps we
>     do need a very close look at the fee structure, that being said,
>     under the way that AfriNIC works, the fees are the domain of the
>     board rather than the community, hence the community is left with
>     policy only options should they feel the fee structures aren't
>     working for them (Well, thats my understanding, someone can
>     correct me if I'm wrong).
>
>     Now, with regards to the policy, as I've said, I do feel that
>     until we can resolve the issue around the fee structures, we need
>     the definitions tightened up, and I still believe that, but I'm
>     going to leave that alone for a minute and look at the fees.
>
>     Here are a couple of thoughts on this firstly.
>
>     AfriNIC is an organization that is fairly new, operating on a
>     continent that has a fairly low internet penetration rate when
>     compared with the other regions.  They also, because they are the
>     youngest of the RIR's, have less total space to assign and hence
>     less total overall revenue that can be generated in annual fees.
>      This WILL have an effect on their pricing.  However, this has to
>     be balanced with economic reality, and that reality is that the
>     prices in Africa for internet related resources (be it bandwidth,
>     access, IP addresses etc) are also having an effect on growth in
>     the region.  I believe though (without empirical evidence I
>     admit), that the AfriNIC fees as they currently stand DO however
>     promote systemic use of network address translation.  The economic
>     realities of operating in the ISP environment in Africa leave
>     people trying to scrape every cent from anywhere just to survive,
>     particularly with the smaller players trying to start their own
>     ISP's, and if you can NAT and save yourself a few thousand dollars
>     a year, well, that's whats going to happen.
>
>     Now, this leads to the next question.  Why are AfriNIC fees what
>     they are.  I will be the first to state, that AfriNIC has to be
>     financially viable, the organization HAS to generate enough
>     revenue to sustain itself, that being said, I think below we can
>     look at the fee structures in any coherent way, we need to
>     understand certain things.  Therefore, I want to ask AfriNIC, in
>     the name of transparency, to provide certain information which I
>     have been unable to find on the website, so that the community as
>     a whole can analyse this.
>
>     a.) How many LIR's are there in each category of membership
>     b.) How many End Users are there in each category of membership.
>
>     Once we have answers to (a) and (b) we can potentially start
>     looking at shifting costs if necessary from one to the other (in
>     particular on the annual maintenance basis)
>
>     Then, the trick to lowering the costs of IP space is also to look
>     at AfriNIC's running costs, and since this is a community based
>     organization, I feel it is fair to question some of these costs
>     and get some explanations so that we can better understand where
>     the money we, as the community, are spending is going to.  The
>     financial reports presented in Ghana where, in my opinion, a
>     little ambiguous and fairly hard to figure out exactly what was
>     meant by each line item, which also didn't help this situation.
>
>     I'd like to better understand the need for AfriNIC's staff
>     compliment as well, after all, AfriNIC's core business is to
>     allocate IP addresses to its community, yet it employs 34 full
>     time staff according to its website, and is advertising for more.
>      At the same time, from what I can see from the website, and
>     again, I say I am open to correction, it only employs 2
>     individuals in the hostmaster position.  These two individuals
>     also travel extensively, and this leads to severe delays in
>     evaluating and approving requests (which is the CORE business of
>     AfriNIC).  I fail at this point to understand why in a staff
>     compliment of 34 staff, there seem to be a relative few number
>     dedicated to what is the core business, and I'd like AfriNIC to
>     comment on this.  I also understand the need for AfriNIC's
>     involvement in ICANN/IANA/etc, since we HAVE to be involved in the
>     global community, however, I would like to see what this
>     involvement is costing AfriNIC at the end of the day, and how this
>     is contributing to the fees.
>
>     Basically, what I'm trying to get at is this.  A.) Are the LIR and
>     End User fees disproportional, and B.) are the costs involved in
>     running AfriNIC that necessitate these fees really justified and
>     can we get better insight into these running costs.
>
>     I think once we get some better understanding, particularly in
>     regards to the balance of the membership base, we can take a far
>     better look at this, and I look forward to hearing AfriNIC's
>     response to the community on these questions.
>
>     Thanks
>
>     Andrew
>
>
>
>
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