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

[Andrew Alston]

There are quite a number of members who are yet to deploy any subnet of the resource allocated to them. There are reasons why this can happen; for example, the upstream provider of a member (which I am contact) attach a recurring fee to block advertisement. This to me was quite  surprising and we are still trying to avoid that cost either through convincing the current provider or moving on to another!

Nevertheless, I don't think there is any member in that category that will successfully get additional allocation.
On a lighter note, this could raise a question on usage and whether a policy is required to "ensure" usage ;)

That’s about the most bizarre thing I’ve read in quite a while… as a provider I want my members to advertise every block of space they possibly have to me – the more they advertise to me, the more traffic flows via me to them, the more transit I sell them.  I really don’t understand the logic behind some providers.

Let’s face facts, IF a provider has customers that have their own space and their own ASN, its in the providers interests to encourage as much advertisement as possible.  However, on the converse, it is in a providers interests to have customers on space assigned by them and not running BGP at all (in the latter case, it means the customer probably isn’t multi-homed, and for the customer to churn the customer will have to renumber, which can be a MAJOR headache, meaning the customer is far less likely to move on).

It’s an interested dialectic, it is in AfriNIC’s (and hence it could be argued the communities) interests to have as many people as possible with their own space and their own ASN’s.  However, it is in the interests of providers to encourage the uptake of space out of their own blocks assigned by AfriNIC and discourage this behaviour.  At the same time, what amazes me about Africa and the substantive use of NAT, it is NOT in a providers interests to have customers behind NAT, and I wonder if this isn’t something we could use to promote the uptake of IPv4 on the continent.  The simple reality is, a customer behind NAT can churn in an instant, the changes required on the customer side are minimal.  However, a customer on a providers space that is NOT running NAT and has the space all over the place has to renumber which could be a downtime and OPEX intensive activity.  (I’ve actually seen research that shows that non-NAT customers are FAR less likely to churn, it reduces the churn rate by double digit percentage points).

Thanks

Andrew


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