[AFRINIC-rpd] New Policy Proposal: Inter RIR IPv4 Address Transfers (AFPUB-2013-V4-001-DRAFT-01)

[Andrew Alston]

Aahh Sunday,

 

I completely agree with you that we need to look for solutions, and hence
the policy proposal that you and I are presenting to this list as soon as we
get the unique identifier.  I do also however believe that if the problems
that currently exist are not spoken about, and dealt with, they will
persist.  Silence and a lack of willingness to speak out on issues, and to
stand our ground and say enough when things are going wrong makes us as
guilty of the problem as anyone else.  

 

If there are delivery issues and process issues, and we as a community do
not speak out and have these things dealt with, we are complicit in the
problems themselves, and it amazes me the things that are said to me by
organizations and individuals alike on other mediums and in chat channels
and skype etc, but when it comes to actually standing up on this list, there
is deafening silence.  Well, I for one cannot stay silent when I see the
same old issues repeating time and time again.

 

Andrew

 

 

From: Sunday Folayan [mailto:sfolayan at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 4:28 PM
To: Andrew Alston
Cc: AfriNIC Resource Policy Discussion List; Maina Noah
Subject: Re: RE: [AFRINIC-rpd] New Policy Proposal: Inter RIR IPv4 Address
Transfers (AFPUB-2013-V4-001-DRAFT-01)

 

Andrew,

let us find another candle to light, instead of cursing the darkness.

Sunday.

On 15 Jan 2013 14:53, "Andrew Alston" <alston.networks at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Maina,

 

I personally believe that the problem is two-fold.  Firstly, the community
tends to resist change and the argument always surfaces, why implement
something that isn't going to generate revenue.  The fact is though that
many of us have been saying for years and years that IPv6 is not about
revenue generation, it's about revenue retention.  When the day arrives that
customers cannot access something elsewhere in the rest of the world because
its gone IPv6 only and an ISP cannot offer IPv6, at that point, the customer
is going to walk and go somewhere that can give him full access to the Net,
and the revenue from that customer is gone.  Once a customer is gone, its
far harder to get them to come back than it was to lose them.  The argument
though around revenue retention versus revenue gain is something that we, as
technical people, have often failed to make to the upper management and
those that hold the purse strings, and I believe that technical people who
DO see the risk of not rolling out IPv6 have failed in this regard.  As
technical people it is our responsibility to ensure that our employers
understand the dangers of not moving forward, after all, if our employers
don't move forward and end up bankcrupt as a result, it is us that will be
out of work.

 

Secondly, with regards to AfriNIC.  I stand by my view that holding onto
IPv4 space is counter-productive, it propagates the mindset that the food
will never spoil.  

 

With regards to the policy in question, believe me, I would prefer to see
other options before this one, but I'm prepared to look at any option that
speeds up the burn rate of the IPv4 pool to bring us closer to the rest of
the world in terms of when we run out.  This is why in Tanzania I proposed
allowing foreign entities to get space directly from AfriNIC for a premium
price once other regions had run out of space, though I can also understand
why the community stands so strongly against such initiatives, it is an
emotional issue.

 

Obviously though, first prize in my book is to use the remaining pool in
Africa, and get it allocated.  THIS is where I believe that AfriNIC is
currently failing, and failing badly.  Because of the current process, the
delays, the back and forth, the moving goal posts, the inconsistency and the
lack of service we are seeing out of the organization, there is a resistance
among many to apply for space.  We have to cut through the red tape and make
it easier for African organizations to actually access our available pool so
that it does get used.  To give you an idea just how bad this situation is
at the moment, I had one major financial organization (who sadly I cannot
publically name on this list), tell me that they would remain single homed
with one provider because their space was provider assigned, and despite
previous attempts to get space from AfriNIC, the process had taken its toll
and they had decided it simply wasn't worth the fight, as a result, they
would stay with a single provider and not go PI based.

 

I know of another organization that was told to present licenses that they
did not need in the country they were operating in before they could get
space.  I know of other industry critical bodies who have been fighting for
space for 3 MONTHS since they ran out.  We all saw the billing issues I
raised on this list last week, and we all still await the full report on
this issue that was promised would be delivered early this week, yet we are
now almost to the middle of the week and there is still no report on this
list.  So yes, there are problems at AfriNIC that are scaring people away
and slowing down the burn rate of the v4 pool, these HAVE to be rectified.
As I said, it's a two-fold problem and needs to be addressed in both areas.

 

Thanks

 

Andrew

 

 

From: Maina Noah [mailto:mainanoa at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:17 PM


To: Andrew Alston
Cc: Sunday Folayan; AfriNIC Resource Policy Discussion List
Subject: Re: [AFRINIC...



 

Andrew,

 

I here you and i understand your point of view clearly. But i for one will
not supp...

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