[AFRINIC-rpd] IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment proposal

[sm+afrinic at elandsys.com]

Hi JP,
At 14:27 22-01-2013, JP Viljoen wrote:
>Going over Andrew's response from a little bit earlier, I find that 
>he has already highlighted a very large amount of problems with this 
>proposal. I'd like to point out some more, and/or different viewpoints on it.
>
>First off, I would like to state that I think this policy would give 
>an intention for AfriNIC to move from the position of registry to 
>the position of IP Police. A number of the clauses (as quick 
>examples, the entireity of 9, much of 8) seem to be worded in such a 
>fashion that it would allow AfriNIC to say whether your use of IP is 
>- to steal some wording from Hemmingway - honest and true. This is 
>not (and should not be) the function/role of AfriNIC, and you can 
>verify this by looking at the roles that other RIRs play. AfriNIC's 
>role is as one-true-source of who-has-what. Nothing more. The 
>policies that govern its allocation practices should be ones that, 
>as stated early in the document, benefit everyone involved. I do not 
>believe this policy proposal benefits anyone *but* AfriNIC, and 
>that's only if AfriNIC could maintain it successfully. Which leads 
>me to the next point:

I looked up Section 8 and 9 against the existing policy 
(AFPUB-2005-v4-001).  There isn't much of a difference  between the two.

>It is already widely known that dealing with AfriNIC is an arduous 
>and length process, due to various (seemingly senseless) hoops one 
>has to jump through just for the purpose of getting your network 
>onto the internet. The reasons for this, as best as people can make 
>out from the outside, are also reasonably well known: AfriNIC is 
>already overloaded. This proposal would add *even more* burden to 
>that workload, and merely on those grounds can be considered imbecillic.

As this is a proposal it is up to people to comment on how to make 
the process less arduous and lengthy.

>Now, with the general sentiment set, let's get onto some of the 
>particulars listed.
>
>"""8.4 Re-numbering
>
>Valid assignments can be replaced with the same number of IPv4 addresses if
>the original assignment criteria are are still met.  The IPv4 addresses
>to be replaced must still be in use.  When a renumbering request exceeds the
>LIR's sub-allocation window, the request should be sent to AfriNIC for
>approval.
>
>A LIR will be given a period of up to three months to migrate to the new IPv4
>address space.  The LIR may request additional time if there is appropriate
>justification.  Once a network has been renumbered, AfriNIC will remove the
>old assignment from the AfriNIC Whois."""
>
>The wording in this paragraph belies the fact that the author(s) of 
>this policy have never been involved in any form of meaningful 
>internet-scale network operations *IN THEIR LIVES*. The very idea of 
>forcing an entity to renumber for a new allocation is utter and 
>complete madness. Consider, for every single growth tier an entity 
>reaches, they would need to redo their entire network, end to end. 
>Again. And again. This could even happen multiple times a year; for 
>proof, see the growth of many wifi WISPs that discovered a sudden 
>boom when they tapped into market demand. Further to this, I'm also 
>aware of some fairly braindead pieces of hardware that do not 
>actually even allow a change of IP, due to licensing construction 
>and so. These pieces of hardware, or even just the license itself, 
>typically tends to number in the multiple zeroes (of USD) when it 
>comes to pricing, so this would be an economically unfeasible 
>practice to do even just once, nevermind multiple times.

I commented about this in my reply to Andrew Alston.

>The general tone of the assignment procedures is also very unclear 
>about many parts, and appears to keep revolving around LIRs becoming 
>the centerpoint for everything. This, again, is a very bad idea. PI 
>space, for example, is a perfectly plausible thing for an individual 
>to have used and announced on the internet by ways of friendly 
>networks. BGPMon, for example, gets a free BGP feed from a fairly 
>large number of networks, and started out as a technical project 
>venture. This is exactly the sort of thing that could get born out 
>of PI space, by the mere result of an admin's tinkering on network 
>stats. To centralize everything around LIRs strikes me as a "father 
>knows best" approach, and the fact that much of the rest of this 
>policy document makes LIRs accountable to AfriNIC for the actions of 
>both themselves and their sub-allocations is misguided in the extreme.

It helps everyone if the procedures are clear.  I'll try and comment 
about the proposal in a further message.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy