[rpd] New proposal - "Out-Of-Region Use of AFRINIC Internet Number Resources" (AFPUB-2014-GEN-002-DRAFT-01)

[Bill Woodcock]

On Jul 10, 2014, at 9:19 AM, Nishal Goburdhan <ndg at ieee.org> wrote:
> RIRs allocate resources to _organisations_ in their region.
> if i look at some of the prefixes that i see at african exchange points, i see a fair chunk of "international" space.  good for them, i say.

Well, not really…  We have an area of policy inconsistency between RIRs here, and I think it’s going to cause a problem.

Looking at ARIN policy, ARIN allocates space for use in the ARIN region.  If you take ARIN-allocated space and use it out-of-region, you can’t use it in a justification for more space.  That effectively means that using it out-of-region means you’re cutting yourself off from further allocations, which effectively precludes doing it in any meaningful volume.

What I believe I’m hearing about AfriNIC policy is that it allocates space to organizations that are incorporated in Africa, but not to networks that operate in Africa.  That leaves a gap in policy, that fails to address the needs of networks that operate in Africa.  That in turn disincentivizes deployment in Africa.  If I can’t get addresses from other RIRs to deploy in Africa, and I can’t get addresses from AfriNIC to deploy in Africa, how do I deploy in Africa, other than by giving up my ability to request more addresses in a different region, which isn’t sustainable either?

Yes, all this becomes somewhat moot in an IPv6-only future economy-of-plenty, but that’s a ways out, yet.

                                -Bill




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