[rpd] Some thoughts, and some actions required

[Mwendwa Kivuva]

On 04/02/2016, Mukom Akong T. <mukom.tamon at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4 February 2016 at 02:04, Mwendwa Kivuva <Kivuva at transworldafrica.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 03/02/2016, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > 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,...
>
>
>
> 'Unique' in what way? Uniqueness (even when undefined) should not surpass a
> policy requirement: Needs-based assignment.

Unique in that the guiding principle is "If it's working, don't fix
it". If they are not nudged, they will never bulge.

>
> There were few network engineers who run university networks stood up to
> support the proposal - that might have been indicative of something.
>
>
> Personally, I thought the ratio of 1:5 was excessive GIVEN the paucity of
> space available. In the world of abundance that is IPv6 --- I don't care
> what ratio is used.
>
>
> If we really wanted to get to something sensible, I'd measure concurrent
> users over say 1 month and a reasonable value would be the mean of
> concurrent users + 3 standard deviations. (assuming statistical normality)
>
>
>
>
>> because as it stands, many
>> Universities in the continent will remain with NAT post v4 exhaustion.
>>
>
>
> Is there a list of universities in Africa with those that have their own
> space or not? Would anyone from AFREN be able to provide such information?
>
>
>
>> 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.
>>
>
>
> I'd argue the reverse: Universities as citadels of knowledge are in a
> position to try out lots more new technologies before ISPs.
>

Yes this is the best practice world over, only that it's not
practiced. Universities are expected to be agents of change in
society, leading in research and innovation.


-- 
______________________
Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya
twitter.com/lordmwesh