[AFRINIC-rpd] RE: IPv4 Address Allocation and Assignment proposal

[Andrew Alston]

McTim,

That is far from clear, redistribution of IP is done to entities, it is
not done to infrastructure.

IANA Allocates to AfriNIC, AfriNIC redistributes to its MEMBERS within the
African region, its members are not infrastructure, its members are legal
entities.  What they put the space on afterwards is entirely up to them
the way that is worded, nowhere does it say that said infrastructure needs
to be on the african continent.


I might also point out that SM withdrew his policy proposal at the last
meeting, so it would need to be re-submitted.

Look, let me be clear on something, I am in no way advocating for all the
African space to be used off continent, I don't believe that's the right
thing to do, I would far rather see the space used productively in Africa.
 That being said, I believe that having the space used off continent is
the lesser of two evils, the other evil being it not being used at all and
Africa remaining with the lowest burn rate of any RIR, because of how
difficult it has become to justify a request for space to AfriNIC, despite
discussions on making the process easier at the last meeting.

While we watch the rest of the world moving ahead with IPv6 (Did you know
that there are half a million people behind Swisscom that have IPv6
addresses, and any customer can get it by request now?), Africa sits with
the perception that our v4 space will never run out and so does nothing to
rectify the situation, while we put ourselves further and further behind
the curve.  At the same time we have unscrupulous vendors using Africa as
a dumping ground for non-IPv6 capable equipment because "we have loads of
space left, it won't run out any time soon", and I have concrete examples
of where this has happened.

At the same time, I believe that AfriNIC needs to follow the policies as
put forward by the community and that have passed through the policy
process, if we start to deviate from the process and the policies and
start making arbitrary additions to these policies through technicalities
we run the risk of making the entire PDP process worthless.  The fact
remains, the policies currently do not prohibit allocation of space to
entities who have legal african existence and choose to use that space off
continent.  If that IS the will of the community that such a policy exist,
then by all means, someone write one, put it on the list, and let it run
through the PDP process as per all other policies.  Until that time, lets
play by the rules and stick by the policies.

Andrew


On 2013/09/11 4:26 PM, "McTim" <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:

>Andrew,
>
>On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 8:05 AM, Andrew Alston <aa at alstonnetworks.net>
>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>AFRINIC has again received a request in which an LIR located in its
>>>>> service region has ISPs incorporated outside the AFRINIC service
>>>>>region
>>>>> as customers and the majority of the allocations are assigned to
>>>>>these
>>>>> customers' customers.
>>>
>>>So what's the issue?
>>
>> Under current policy, technically there shouldn't be an issue.  There is
>> no policy that prohibits this at current.  Under soft landing it would
>>be
>> a clear cut violation of the 10% rule, under current policy?  Well,
>>unless
>> there is a policy I'm not aware ofŠ
>
>
>Our current allocation policy says:
>
>"4.0 Hierarchy of address space distribution:
>
>IP addresses are distributed in an hierarchical structure in which
>IANA (The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) allocates address space
>to AFRINIC, to be redistributed throughout the African region. "
>
>
>If this is not clear enough to support the wishes of the community,
>then perhaps SM could amend his current proposal:
>http://afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development/policy-proposals/849-ip
>v4-address-allocation-and-assignment-afpub-2013-v4-002-draft-01-under-disc
>ussion
>
>so that it is inline with the Soft-Landing policy in re: usage of
>resources out of the region.
>
>-- 
>Cheers,
>
>McTim
>"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
>route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel