[rpd] AfriNIC policy AFPUB-2014-GEN-002-DRAFT-01 reject

[Borg]

Borg le Chevalier
___________________________________
"Common sense is what tells us the world is flat"

On 23 October 2014 00:28, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:

>
>> I can concretely demonstrate that the availability of IPv4 addressing can
>> have an impact on business investment.
>>
>
>
> Impact, sure. but not determining factor in any significant investment
> that can be said to be "developing africa". It the arrogance of the
> statement I mention.
>
>
> Actually, it could well be a determining factor.
>


For mature market maybe, but for new market, no really.


>
> Nobody in their right mind is launching a new IPv4 ISP in Asia right now.
> The lack of available addressing makes such a venture foolhardy at best.
>


The service is Internet, not IPv4-based Internet. Any big investiment in
Internet infrastructure in Africa will target non-consumption. Those people
who has never have Internet - anything  (IPv6, NAT) will be better and
still make the investiment worth it. NOBODY invests invests in networking
infrastrasture in large scale in Africa just because of availability of
IPv4.


>
> Africa has more IPv4 space available than anywhere else in the world right
> now. That makes it more reasonable for new market entrants to invest in
> Africa,
>

The opportunity for investment is because lots of africans are still
offline, NOT because there is IPv4. And for those people offline, any
Internet (IPv6, NAT) will be sufficient.


What investor (except IPv4 brokers) bases an investment decision on a
resource that is known to be not sustainable to get in the futur?



> but it also makes Africa a target for pulling resources out to exploit
> them in other regions.
>


That the biggest concern and i think a legitime one for africans. Policy
might just be an ineffective way - better have the resources being used by
legitimate african interests (gouvenments, universities, etc)


>
> While I agree with Andrew to a large extent that African companies must be
> allowed to use AfriNIC space to compete globally,
>


me too agree with Andrew and you 100% on this.



> I also believe that a lack of limitations on the exportation of address
> space by pseudo-African companies[1] and/or non-African companies[2] will
> lead to exploitation that does not particularly benefit Africa or Africans.
>

++1 and that is the problem these proposal try to address (not sure how
effective it would have be)


>
>  I’m not sure where brokers came into this or what you mean by arrogant IT
> people who over-value IT in general and IPv4 in particular, so I’m not sure
> how to answer that.
>


Arrogance = attitude that get someone to say "I am a member of afrinic,
investing an making africa a better place" ---
Arrogance = believe that in grande scheme of developmental challenges,
Internet (particularly IPv4-based one) ranks in even the top 3 of
priorities.

Don't get me wrong, IT is very important .... depending on existing
infrastructure and context. It not a silver bullet to 'make africa a better
place'



>
> But believe me, coming from an environment where having address space is
>> critical to the business, there is a correlation between investment and
>> address space, and it can be clearly demonstrated.
>>
>
>
> Correlation != Causation. I be happy to be show both. The attractiveness
> of IT infrastructure in Afrique is based more on business opportunity.
>  link to a IPv4 resource that is quick running out is very shady at best.
> Or put different - will these investments stop if afrinic run out of ipv4?
> (we might look to see weather investments in infrastructure  in india and
> Chine have stopped because of lack of ipv4.
>
>
> Addresses are a critical component of internet services. Liquid is an ISP.
> If they can’t provide addresses for their infrastructure and their
> customers, they will not be able to sell services and thus will not have an
> ROI. Therefore, a lack of address availability will, in fact, prevent
> future investment. That’s causation, not merely correlation.
>

You forget

a) Addresses != IPv4 (thankfully Liquid also do v6)
b) Going with your model - that business strategy is going to be dead in 4
- 5 years as v6 run out.
c) In term of numbers, Liquid may not have more customers than the mobile
operators in africa and somehow they still in business and thriving.


>
> I do believe that we need to protect the African resources from being
>> pillaged by non-African entities and IP Brokers.  I will strongly support
>> policy that prevents African resources flowing off continent into the hands
>> of those who have absolutely no link to Africa AND where there is no
>> benefit (quantitative) to the continent.
>>
>
>
> That seem to me to be a goal many people in the community share. but i
> wander , with such small IPv4 space compared to other part of world, why is
> afrinic consumption so small?
>
>
> There are a number of historic reasons relating to the following problem
> areas:
>
> 1. Difficulty qualifying for resources under ARIN policies of the past
> (pre-AfriNIC)
> 2. Perception problems created by 1
> 3. Cost and the perceived cost-savings of NAT (artificial, though they
> are)
> 4. Perceived security/control/etc. advantages of NAT (also artificial)
> 5. Limited understanding of the process of obtaining addresses and fee
> structures
>
> I just do not believe at this point we have a policy proposal that
>> fulfills these objectives.
>>
> Rather than merely state that the current proposal doesn’t meet the
> objectives, perhaps it would be more useful if you could propose language
> or modifications that could be made to the current proposal in order to
> achieve what I think almost everyone agrees is the valid goal.
>

that phrase was andrew, not me. :-)

but with your nice list of reasons - i think

- policy (one that establish and discourage abuse of afrinic resources for
pseudo-african companies) is good start.
- problems (2,3,4,5) can be solve by education and communication and
training
- standardize process so legitime companies can get address quicker and
cheaper





>
> Owen
>
>
>
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