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

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 10, 2014, at 09:47 , Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net> wrote:

> 
> 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.

[Speaking only as myself and not representing ARIN, the ARIN AC, my employer, any municipality, county, state, country, or other government, or even the local dog catcher, strictly my own personal opinion, and likely one that will not be popular among my peers]:

That's what ARIN currently does. It's not actually what ARIN policy currently says. The only part of the NRPM I could find which actually covers this is section 2.2 which states:

2.2. Regional Internet Registry (RIR)

Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) are established and authorized by respective regional communities, and recognized by the IANA to serve and represent large geographical regions. The primary role of RIRs is to manage and distribute public Internet address space within their respective regions.

Nowhere in the NRPM is there any discussion (favorable or prohibitive) of allocations to entities outside of the ARIN region, nor is there discussion of allocations or assignments to entities in the region for use outside of the region. ARIN Policy is moot on the subject and it has been the source of some significant consternation within our region and there is at least one policy proposal currently under discussion to clarify this in policy.

There was, in fact, a time when ARIN readily and often issued space to ARIN members and end-user organizations headquartered in the ARIN region and operating global networks such that they were able to number all of their global infrastructure while still dealing with a single RIR. I believe that this was the original intent of the design of the RIR system and I believe we should strive to be as close to this as possible.

Unfortunately, scarcity of IPv4 addresses has created unique and tragic circumstances which require more rigorous policy in a newfound environment where the good will and community spirit of operators can no longer be counted upon. (without shortage, there was no real benefit to being a bad actor, so we mostly had good actors and the bad actors were below the noise floor).

> 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?

I believe this is less of a gap than perceived because incorporated in Africa doesn't necessarily mean headquartered in Africa and I think that the actual AfriNIC requirements are "registered" in Africa, similar to ARIN's requirements that the business have a legal presence in the ARIN region.

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

Indeed


Owen

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