[rpd] AfriNIC RSA & policy improvement

Mon Jun 22 04:32:15 UTC 2015

Dear,

Services are SLA bound for efficiency and there is absolutely no reason why
there shouldn't be a time frame for Afrinic's allocation responses,
especially  where such cases are springing forth often. I wholly support
that Afrinic should define and make public timelines for allocation. In
furtherance, an annual audit report on SLA should be provided.

I do not see how this adds to the burden of Afrinic's staff except to
improve operational service level.

Regards,
Ademola Osindero
On Jun 7, 2015 7:52 PM, "Jean Robert Hountomey" <jrhountomey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Vladimir, Jerome and Al,
>
> Thank you for your patience with the AfriNIC Community. While I support
> the fact that it is not acceptable to delay a business
> with unreasonable requests, I don’t think that AfriNIC's staff has a
> malicious intention.
>
> Also I understand that something need to be done, and I fear that tackling
> it through a policy may not be the best option, it will add
> delays from approval to adoption etc...
>
>
>
> My suggestion (I second Adam) will be approaching AfriNIC's CEO. In
> addition I think your issue and the one from CloudFlare and many others can
> be resolved
> if we ask AfriNIC to implement a Conflict Arbitration Procedure in the
> Membership documents.
>
> A possible way would be to ask the Board to task the Council of Elders
> (defined in Article 16 of AfriNIC bylaws) to propose such a procedure and
> to nominate
> Arbiters from AfriNIC region - and other Region - to serve as mediators in
> conflicts between AfriNIC and its members, and to evaluate the validity of
> such
> requests.
>
> I think RIPE NCC will be ok if we copy what they have in place and add our
> own part. (1).
> I will also call for an Audit procedure to allow Arbiters to review
> allocation. RIPE NCC has a good sample.(2).
>
> (1). https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-613
> (2). https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-423
>
> In addition, I see that you have also reported issues with the SLA. I
> don't know if AfriNIC's CEO is part of admin-escalate at afrinic.net
> but we know him, and this can be reported to him.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jean Robert.
>
> On 6/5/15 10:10 AM, Jérôme Fleury wrote:
>
>> Vladimir,
>>
>> We (CloudFlare) are in the exact same situation as you:
>>
>> - Company decides to make investments in Africa
>> - Company registered in Seychelles
>> - Unreasonable requests from hostmaster (he wanted the list of our 2
>> million domain names)
>> - allocation request started in October 2014, still no IP allocated
>> - wait times between replies are between 2 and 3 weeks
>> - the only way I found to get an escalation was to use Twitter - per
>> policy, admin-escalate at afrinic.net is unresponsive
>> - Plus adding a misinterpretation on the Anycast policy
>>
>> This is delaying our deployment in Kenya and expansion in Johannesburg
>> where we already are.
>>
>> I second your proposal.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 5, 2015 at 7:48 AM, Vladimir Kangin <v at kangin.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
>>> AFRINIC community,
>>>
>>> Please allow me to tell you a 3 minute story before proposing some
>>> suggestions for further discussion.
>>>
>>> I would like to bring to your attention AGAIN, the case of IPTP
>>> Networks. Being part of IPTP Holding PLC established in Cyprus. That's
>>> 200 miles away from Egypt for those who do not know where Cyprus is
>>> situated. IPTP Networks is a member in good standing of LACNIC, APNIC,
>>> ARIC and RIPE for quite some time and operates one of the largest global
>>> networks across all of the continents.
>>>
>>> In 2012 a decision was made by IPTP Holding PLC to invest and expand in
>>> Africa. In order to be present in an AFRINIC region a company was
>>> registered in the Seychelles. Our team has tried to secure initial
>>> allocation of /22 for the star-up in Africa. However somehow,
>>> communication had no progress. As a consequence last AFRINIC I decided
>>> to visit AFRINIC in person in an effort to speed up the process.
>>>
>>> As per AFRINIC advice we apply for /22 allocation in November 2014. We
>>> clearly illustrated our plans and were given assurances that companies
>>> such as IPTP Networks are welcome in Africa and that there will be no
>>> issues in allocation.
>>>
>>> During AFRINIC (roughly 7 months ago) we explained that we would like to
>>> have /22 allocation for our project in Johannesburg and based on advice
>>> from Arthur we obtained and provided a letter of intent as proof of our
>>> agreements with Colocation and Network providers to deploy our POP in
>>> Johannesburg.
>>>
>>> However we have had no progress with allocation for a few months. At
>>> this stage the AFRINIC team has informed our team that until we actually
>>> deploy all equipment and network in Africa we would not get any
>>> allocation. We were then given further assurances that as soon as our
>>> presence in Africa was established there would be no further delays and
>>> issues.
>>>
>>> Based on this information IPTP Holding PLC has approved an investment
>>> into the Johannesburg POP and as of April a full size POP has been
>>> operating in Teraco JB1 datacenter. From that point we have endured a
>>> monthly expense while our AFRINIC /22 allocation case kept being
>>> delayed. We were repeatedly advised that in accordance with AFRINIC RSA
>>> (due to so many fake applications) hostmasters are in the position to
>>> request ANY documents from the applicants. Some of the documents that
>>> have been requested are strictly confidential and we did our best to
>>> obtain said documents from our vendors/providers together with the
>>> appropriate letters.
>>>
>>> However our documents were not accepted and Arthur continuously insisted
>>> on documents that we cannot disclose. Having escalated it further we
>>> have had a discussion with Medhvi and she has shown her full support for
>>> the inadequate requirements of Arthur. Our position on this issue is
>>> simple and open. We are happy to provide any reasonable proof of our
>>> presence. We are OK with involving Terraco and Level(3) representatives
>>> to provide required evidence too. The hostmasters reject these options.
>>> At the same time Arthur is continually handling this case in a most
>>> unfavorable way, taking a lot of resources from our team and delaying
>>> the start date of operations in IPTP's Johannesburg POP.
>>>
>>> We have large number of customers signed with IPTP Networks that are
>>> waiting for the service to be delivered. This creates an additional
>>> financial loss to IPTP Networks.
>>>
>>> Medvi and Arthur have stated clearly that they cannot trust the letter
>>> provided by Teraco (because there have been a number of forgeries) but
>>> refuse to meet Teraco representative for confirmation. I therefore have
>>> to admit that the policy is not sufficient and allows hostmasters to
>>> make unilateral decisions at their sole discretion.
>>>
>>> Based on the unpleasant experience above I would like to humbly propose
>>> few important changes to the RSA and policy:
>>>
>>> Summary of proposal:
>>>
>>> This proposal is to improve service quality and transparency of
>>> AFRINIC's number resource service.
>>>
>>> Proposal:
>>> 1. AFRINIC Shall define a clear time-frame for approval and escalation
>>> whereby cases will be address to the management in a timely manner.
>>> (It would allow to rectify the endless loop or let's say “ping pong”
>>> cases in a constructive way)
>>> 2. AFRINIC shall simplify the extra-small and small allocation process
>>> for companies entering the African continent. This can, for instance, be
>>> copied from LACNIC whereby a company can be allocated a /22 on a basis
>>> that it confirms its intention to start operations within 6 month of
>>> assignment.
>>> (Such treatment is certain to stimulate foreign companies' investment in
>>> Africa, a fact that I am certain is welcome in this room)
>>> 3. AFRINIC should publish standard documentary requirements for each
>>> type of request for resource allocation.
>>> (It is not enough to leave it up to the hostmaster's sole discretion to
>>> request ANY information as is the case now in accordance with the
>>> current RSA. This could allow the hostmasters to abuse the policy and
>>> potentially pressure applicants for “bakshish”)
>>> 4. AFRINIC should not store or request any marketing, business related
>>> or basically non-technical information. For instance customer data,
>>> marketing channels, marketing budgets etc.
>>> 5. AFRINIC allocation should be solely based on current policy, no other
>>> factors other than policy should influence AFRINIC's decision on
>>> processing allocation.
>>> 6. AFRINIC shall carefully select the hostmasters and monitor their
>>> activities. In case of any suspicious activity the offender shall be
>>> immediately suspended.
>>> 7. AFRINIC policy working group chair election should be conducted
>>> independent from AFRINIC board nomination committee. Candidates should
>>> be free of any requirements.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Best regards,
>>> Vladimir Kangin
>>> IPTP Inc Seychelles
>>> Part of IPTP Networks
>>> IPTP HOLDING PUBLIC LIMITED
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> rpd mailing list
>>> rpd at afrinic.net
>>> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rpd
>>>
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