[AFRINIC-rpd] IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment proposal

Fri Feb 8 06:50:27 UTC 2013

@Andrew/SM

As one of the board members, I can assure that I do read widely the posts on this rpd list.  And as you rightly hint, I try hard not to be too liberal with my views.  I believe Board members must ride the delicate path of not being seen as too pre-emptive, biased or exerting undue pressure on the direction the discussions should go. But since you have drawn me out of the woodwork, I cannot resist to share my views on this Policy - particularly because of my affiliation with Academia.

And straight to the point of ratios. Whether  it is 1:1, 1:3, 1:5 /etc IPs per student/user in a University - this is largely applicable in SA, or middle-income type of economies where No. of students is closely correlated with the expected No. of  PCs/Laptops/IPad/etc.  In sub-saharan africa, I can tell you that the link between No. of students and No. of PCs is largely non-existant (though it may slightly exist in private universities - again where income levels of student communities are higher).

I work in a public university (which in most sub-saharan countries) would take  over 80% of the total University Student enrollments in a given country. I can tell you for sure that the the No. of PCs in a Public University in a Sub-saharan economy has more to do with the ICT Investment ratios rather than student numbers. In other words what % of the University budget is going into ICT development per year - which translates better to the No. of Labs, IP Devices expected.  Perhaps you may want to review your policy in this light.

Another point regards the fact that in recent years, Higher Educational Institutions  have the trend of acquiring IPs through their Educational Networks e.g. TENET in  SA, KENET in Kenya, etc.   This trend is being picked up in West Africa and other parts of Africa (e.g.Madagascar).  And So in future, less and and less individual universities may be applying directly to AfriNIC for space.  This should however not stop the policy  - since the same policy would still be useful in informing the Educational Networks on how to approximate IP resource capacities in order to subsequently request from AfriNIC.

Finally, with the continued use of NAT - African Universities  tend to have a bigger problem of announcing their allocated space than perhaps the problem of getting them from AfriNIC :-).  I believe there is  a policy requirement that one should announce a % of their IP space within a given time frame but not sure if this is monitored and/or if there are examples of consequences for not doing this.

On other matters that have been discussed:
*Policy vs Operational Issues: I agree we need to be careful not to use an IP resource policy to address Operational Issues.  If AfrinIC staff and management are taking too long on processing IP resource request, there should be channels to address this e.g. by ensuring AfriNIC reviews or publishes its Service Charter/SLA committement to its membership.

*Inter RIR IPv4 Transfers:
I did agree with the message that hording IPv4 space in the face of emerging IPv6 space is like holding onto a losing stock.    A time is fast approaching when Africa will be boasting of having millions of IPv4 space that is not useful to anyone.  But this reality should trigger us to come up with strategies of increasing usage as opposed to strategies of "selling"  or liquidating the stock.

walu.

________________________________
 From: Andrew Alston <aa at alstonnetworks.net>
To: sm+afrinic at elandsys.com 
Cc: rpd at afrinic.net 
Sent: Thursday, February 7, 2013 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: [AFRINIC-rpd] IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment proposal

I have to actually agree with what SM implied in his below emails.

There has been a deafening silence of late from the PDWG chairs and various AfriNIC staff.  (I realize that AfriNIC staff and board members seldom comment on policy, but at the same time, the silence is rather worrying).

I'd also like to point out that many emails directly to AfriNIC staff members also go unanswered for long periods of time (I have asked a series of questions with regards to the bylaws and submission of resolutions for example, sent 48 hours ago, and as of yet despite a resend, have still not received any acknowledgement.)

Can we get this lack of participation rectified?

Andrew

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 10:18 PM, <sm+afrinic at elandsys.com> wrote:

Hi Badru,
>
>At 14:32 29-01-2013, Sunday Folayan wrote:
>
>Perhaps our lurking but friendly AfriNIC staff should re-subscribe them.
>>
>
I haven't seen any message from the PDWG Chairs to the RPD mailing list since the end of November 2012.  I mentioned to Owen Delong that I would like to identify  what the community considers as barriers and then proceed from there [1].  I am unable to do that without feedback from the PDWG Chairs.
>
>It is highly usual for the PDWG Chairs not to be subscribed to the RPD mailing list.  I have not seen any of directors of the Board of AfriNIC expressing their concern.
>
>I note that the directors of the Board of AfriNIC, excluding you [2], have not expressed any opinion about the proposals which are being discussed on the RPD mailing list.  It was mentioned previously that: "And over the coming few months you will see allot of activity towards building a wider community of active participants".  I fear that the wider community may mistakenly perceive that the directors of the Board of AfriNIC are not interested in being part of the wider community of active participants.
>
>Regards,
>S. Moonesamy
>
>1. https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/rpd/2013/003022.html
>2. https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/rpd/2013/002865.html  
>
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>rpd mailing list
>rpd at afrinic.net
>https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rpd
>

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