[rpd] Some thoughts, and some actions required

[Mwendwa Kivuva]

On 03/02/2016, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
>
>> On Feb 3, 2016, at 06:06 , Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Mwendwa,
>>
>> You say that but history also indicates that there have been significant
>> issues in certain cases around universities applying for large tracts of
>> space.  Most of which were resolved at the time, but it was a fairly
>> complex exercise that at times took long periods of time and a lot of back
>> and forth that I’m not sure most universities are geared up for.
>>
>> Sadly, our current policies are such that there is enough ambiguity that
>> large applications often require explanations which can at times be fairly
>> difficult to calculate and provide, for example, the issue of wifi usage
>> concurrency has proved to be a major point of contention, because on a new
>> wifi deployment its extremely difficult to prove concurrent utilisation
>> without historic figures.
>
> While I did not support the educational policy because I did not believe it
> appropriate to give special privileges to educational institutions to the
> detriment of other classes of community members, I would support a policy
> that generally allowed for a reasonable estimation of concurrent wifi users
> based on quantified total user base.
>

We are a unique market and probably it would have made sense to pass
the policy give preference to Universities, because as it stands, many
Universities in the continent will remain with NAT post v4 exhaustion.
Since Universities are not in the business of always scaling and
getting to new territories as LIRs are, they are just comfortable with
NAT, to the detriment of growth of proper IP networks.

> For example, if reasonable evidence could be presented for a probable
> userbase of 50,000 wireless devices, I would support a policy which allowed
> for an assumption of up to 80% concurrency (e.g. 40,000 addresses needed)
> with an appropriate round-up to bit boundary for IPv4. (In the case of IPv6,
> we’re counting subnets, not
> devices anyway, so I don’t think it matters).
>
>> The other issue in the past (which thankfully seems to have been resolved)
>> is the debate about if a university is an EU or an LIR, I remember
>> debating this at length with AfriNIC a few years ago and there was
>> substantial discussion on this list around this point (please lets not
>> reopen this one, it gets messy)
>
> It gets messy because most universities want to act as LIRs while being
> treated as EUs. It gets messy because there has never been a good clear
> definition of what constitutes an EU vs. an LIR and many seek to muddy the
> waters based on the reporting of reassignments/reallocations rather than
> looking at the direct fact of whether addresses are reassigned/reallocated.
> It gets further muddied by those who would seek to claim that dynamic
> reassignments/reallocations do not constitute reassignments/reallocations.
>
> It would be very clean if we defined it as follows:
>
> An LIR is an organization which provides addresses (regardless of mechanism)
> to third parties for use on equipment neither owned, nor controlled by the
> LIR.
>
> An EU is an organization which does not in any way fit the definition of LIR
> above.
>
> However, since most Universities are horrified at the thought of being
> considered LIRs, these definitions receive significant opposition.
>
>> I to would support large amounts of space being left in the hands of
>> academia, and it really saddens me that I know of universities that are
>> still using NAT to push entire campuses through address space that is
>> smaller than a /28!
>
> Yes… This should be fixed to the greatest extent possible while there is
> still some extent to which it can be fixed.
>

If we don't act fast, the sheep may have already set sail.  I don't
see a flood of requests from Universities in this critical period
unless we have a way to nudge them, probably do outreach and
demonstrate the importance of uptake of public v4 and prevent the CGN
route.

-- 
______________________
Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya