[AfriNIC-rpd] Definitions of LIR versus End User

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 23, 2012, at 1:49 AM, Seun Ojedeji wrote:

> Hello Owen
> 
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 8:34 AM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> .... I find it very hard to distinguish between the type of service offered to students/faculties residing within
> institutional housing and getting their internet access in said housing
> from the institution vs. a typical cable MSO or DSL or Metro-E subscriber
> in the outside world.
> 
> Its really interesting that you found it difficult to distinguish between the two scenario even as it seem you have already made the distinct difference in your statement above. The words you used(in bold) clarifies that, like you said institutional housing just indicates that it is still within the same organization however the DSL or Metro-E subscriber exists beyond the same organization

So, if an MSO owns a bunch of apartment complexes and operate a cable MSO that serves those apartment complexes, that cable MSO would magically not be an LIR just because it owns the apartment complexes that it serves?

I don't think that is true.


>  
> That all sounds wonderful on a billboard or in a brochure, but at the end of
> the day, when it comes to the internet access they receive in their
> institutional housing, they are giving the university money and the
> university is providing access services to connect their residential
> networks to the internet.
> 
>  Is it based on the above that universities be clasified as LIR?  Let me ask you, who among the end-user does not use the Internet services with the aim of making money? university is the one that provides Internet access to her community at almost zero charges because they use it to promote research activities and encourage their staff and student to provide content. 

Most businesses that are not LIR do not give addresses to entities paying them for internet access.

An enterprise that is not an LIR (e.g. ISP) does not generally provide addresses to its customers. As a general rule, IP addresses are assigned to devices owned by said enterprise and/or devices owned by people being paid by the enterprise.

The one grey area in this respect that I can think of would be something like an internet cafe. However, I believe that the internet cafe looks more like the WiFi network in the university public areas (which I previously mentioned didn't seem LIR-ish) rather than providing internet access to opaque residential networks.

It is the opacity of the handoff that I believe defines the situation.

> On a lighter note, i thought it was already clear that institutions that provides IP resource within her organization are end-user? If yes then there should be no reason to continue this discussion. Perhaps it may help to hear from any institution that recently applied for resource from Afrinic on what classification they were assigned. i.e was it classified as end-user OR LIR 

Ambiguity in the current policy and the associated wiggle room on both sides is what touched off this debate to begin with. Asking about previous decisions does not remove the ambiguity from the language.

Owen

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