[rpd] Some thoughts, and some actions required

[Owen DeLong]

>> I've always championed, Universities should get their own IP space and ASN
>> and then interconnect with the REN using BGP. Is that the case at UoN and
>> if not I'd be interested in knowing the challenges there.
>> 
> 
> No that is not the case because University of Nairobi goes through
> KENET. It would require a long process to bypass KENET because the
> Universities are Trustees of KENET. Here is where politics comes into
> play.

Nobody said anything about “bypassing” KENET. What was suggested was get your
own addresses and ASN directly from AfriNIC and then interconnect with KENET
using BGP.

This doesn’t take anything away from KENET (in fact, it potentially returns
significant address space to KENET that they can then use elsewhere). It does
give the university greater ability to control its own fate, but I can’t see
how that would be bad for the university or for KENET.

If there’s some political belief that this would somehow be bad, then it would
surely fall into one of two categories:

1.	KENET feels the need to control the network fate of the member
	universities rather than facilitate a network on their behalf,
	in which case KENET has overstepped its useful purpose and the
	sooner this is rectified, the better for all concerned.

2.	It is a misunderstanding which can best be solved through outreach
	and education.

The beauty is that even if it is case 1, an effort to treat it as case 2
will usually allow the necessary changes to be made to solve case 1 with
a minimum of angst.

>> I'm pretty sure that if every university on this continent requested IPv4
>> space for 1/3 their need, AFRINIC's pool won't last 3 months.
>> 
> This is absolutely true.

Then I suggest that the first 1/3rd of universities applying to AfriNIC will win and
encourage those universities watching this list to take heed.

Owen