[rpd] Statistics on IPV4 allocation in Africa as of 2016

[Mark Tinka]

On 17/Jun/16 04:31, Owen DeLong wrote:

>
>
> In a market with informed consumers, it is in the best interests of
> the vendors to develop products that consumers will buy. The trick
> here is that we seem to have plenty of consumers willing to accept the
> conduct you describe. If we collectively demand better products, the
> vendors will produce them. If we continue to purchase substandard
> products from vendors, they will happily continue to sell them to us. 
>
> We are in the drivers seat on what gets developed. So far, we've been
> largely asleep at the wheel.

The reality is different, though.

Vendors will prioritize features based on income. This is why many of
the platforms we've seen from the traditional vendors have been built on
the back of a large order from one or two operators.

Now, with merchant silicon quickly catching up to in-house chips, and
software networking being all the rage, there is the opportunity for the
traditional vendors to get some competition from new equipment entrants,
which would force them to get back to their roots, i.e., develop for
technology's sake, backed by popular demand. Whether this will actually
happen, I don't know, but operators will, at least, have options to move
them forward in some form or other.

What I do know is that if an existing feature is broken, the vendors
will fix it because they are technologists at heart, and having
defective kit out there speaks ill of their technological morals. I've
seen this happen over and over again, and I can attest to being able to
count the number of times where a fix has only been available on a newer
platform.

Mark.