[rpd] Inbound Policy

Tue Dec 6 03:34:31 UTC 2016

Hi David,

Firstly – I write what I say below in my own capacity – and PURELY my own capacity.  What follows is not stated as fact – it is stated as observations and as it is stated as my own beliefs, which I hope are not accurate, and I am (extremely) open to being PROVED wrong.

You know – I watched that inbound transfer policy fail – and to be honest I expected as much – because let me say it like it is – I do not believe that the people who stood against the policy stood against the policy itself – I believe this was very much a case of what was described by Chris and Jan at the microphone at the end of the meeting.  It seems to be stances are taken against the regions the policies come from or the people who author the policies.  Until we fix the blatant regional splits in the policy process – we will not come right.

I strongly believe that the stance against the inbound transfer policy that I saw on that floor a stance against our own interests as a community.  It is my honest opinion that we saw more of what we saw in Gaborone and in Pointe Noir where we first picked it up – people walked to the microphone with scripted responses, which were not written by themselves, and stating cases and arguments which were not their own.  I, and others, KNOW this happening, why?  Because we see people coming to the microphone and reading off laptop screens and off pieces of paper, and when you start calling these people back to the microphone and questioning what they have just said – they can’t explain it – they can’t justify what they just said, and instead resort to talking total nonsense to get around the fact that they were making a statement on behalf of someone else that they haven’t adequately understood.

This is not only happening in the policy meetings btw – please, take a while and go and study the videos of the SGMM in Pointe Noir to get some history on where this began – and it’s plain as day what’s going on.  I also believe that we saw the same regional divide in the votes for the special resolutions on the floor in Mauritius – and many of the votes cast there were not based on the content of the resolutions.

Reality is – in less than a year from now, we will need to be able to bring resources in from outside – I truly honestly believe that.  No soft-landing policy will save us from that, in any form.  For the bigger guys this isn’t a problem, because many of the multi-nationals hold membership of multiple RIR’s.  I can point to several entities ranging from large entities in Tunis in the north to South Africa in the south that have memberships in both AfriNIC and RIPE.  The cost of maintaining that additional membership for a large entity is, well quite frankly, negligible.  However, for the smaller entities, that cost could be a factor.

So what will happen – the larger entities will simply transfer the space into their RIPE memberships on the secondary market and begin to use it in Africa (RIPE policies do not preclude that), and there are ways to do exactly the same thing in at least one other region as well – within the bounds of their policies.  However, the smaller entities in Africa will once again be disadvantaged by this and the digital divide increases some more.

It’s going to be fascinating to see in the coming months when entities need space and can’t get it – what the stance will be of the people who have so vocally opposed this, when their organizations are the ones needing space.

But yes, I believe what is happening in the policies forums and people’s support not of policies but based on regions, linguistics, geo-politics etc, is a damning indictment of our community and I believe the world is watching – it is truly sad to see what I believe is an organization being forced into a role as a proxy for a fight that is so far removed from anything to do with IP and ASN resources.   Now the question is, can we honestly have an open discussion about the REAL issues facing us, or am I going to become flame bait for what I have said here?  Because again, I believe that if we don’t start talking openly about what is going on – we will never advance.

Andrew

From: "fransossen at yahoo.com" <fransossen at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: "fransossen at yahoo.com" <fransossen at yahoo.com>
Date: Monday, 5 December 2016 at 15:19
To: rpd <rpd at afrinic.net>
Subject: Re: [rpd] Inbound Policy

Hi all,

All and all, transfers will happen one way or another, declared as allocation transfers from one LIR to another, the point of this policy, declared as assignments or sub-allocations, that can already be done today so nothing new.

If transfers are not allowed, undeclared transfers will happen, where some organisation may be using large chunk of address space without registering those in the Database, the purpose of the RIR and its associated Database then becomes questionable.

So regulating the transfers through policy is a good idea.
Out of region transfers will happen as well, no one prevents an AFRINIC member to open up an LIR in the RIPE Region and get a transfer to their membership over there, so rejecting out of region transfer will eventually only hurt the region and finances of the AFRINIC.

You do not have to see all transfers as IPs going from hoarders/harvesters to LIRs in need, those transfers have large financial transactions behind them.
This in itself is a motivation and people are squeezing and NAT'ing their resources to the max to allow for themselves to free up what is valuable resources and transfer them away, in a sense, they degrade their own network to capitalise on the needs of others.

The bad part as mentioned by others, AFRINIC to AFRINIC transfers are directly in conflict with the RSA where transfers are specifically mentioned as not allowed other than as part of merger and acquisitions.

And now for the very bad part, since "inbound out of region transfer policy" was rejected, the transfer market in AFRINIC region will be very different from the rest of the world and potentially even nastier than elsewhere.

Without the potential influx of address space from out of region, the whole AFRINIC market will exist on its own, as a bubble detached from the world, allowing the people that are ready and willing to transfer to other members to jack up the prices to whatever level they want!
As they are the only source of IPv4 address and no external competition can be brought in to lower the prices, I can see the few actors in the market already rubbing their hands at the deals they can make between each other and fixing a minimum prices within this region to ensure maximum profits for their "broker" services.

RIRs already function within an almost monopoly system divided by region, now we will enable a cartel to form within the monopoly.

The possibility of transferring resources into the region would in itself had at least leveled up the prices with current international market rate in IP transfers, without that, everyone is now left to the harsh and maximum monetisation possible of the few that are willing and able to transfer away.

Great for the sellers selling large block to large entities in need of hundreds of thousands of IPs, large entities tend not to care about money too much (purposefully exaggerated statement unless you are google, amazon or similar then it remains true).
Horrible for smaller organisations that only need a small range like a /22 or even smaller for some business critical infrastructure expansion.

Transfers generally already only benefit larger organisations, since transfers also have a large financial cost attached to them, organisations willing to seek a transfer do this out of desperation or too much money and easy way out.
But smaller organisation are now priced out even before the transfer market begins, through the fact that only one of the transfer policies was passed through, neither would had been better than just one, both would had been best.

Cheers,
David Hilario

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On Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:50 AM, SamiSalih <sami at ntc.gov.sd> wrote:

I need just a simple clarification on my below logic

1- Part of this region see a need to this policy now
2- other part see we will need it later on (may be next week)
3- no one justify any harm to our region if this implemented now

so in favor of the people who need this policy now why we are opposing? even if those are just very few organizations.

From: "Maye Diop" <mayediop at gmail.com>
To: "SamiSalih" <sami at ntc.gov.sd>
Cc: "Mark Elkins" <mje at posix.co.za>, "rpd" <rpd at afrinic.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:48:41 AM
Subject: Re: [rpd] Inbound Policy

Dear Sami,
Transition will take time and I did not understand the urge of this proposal.
Best Regards

2016-11-29 8:38 GMT+00:00 SamiSalih <sami at ntc.gov.sd<mailto:sami at ntc.gov.sd>>:

Dear Maye Diop,

Would you please justify your position

BR

Dr. Sami Salih  | Assistant Professor
Sudan University of Science and Technology
Eastern Dum, P.O Box 11111-407
email: sami.salih at sustech.edu<mailto:sami.salih at sustech.edu>
Mob: +249122045707

________________________________
From: "Maye Diop" <mayediop at gmail.com<mailto:mayediop at gmail.com>>
To: "Mark Elkins" <mje at posix.co.za<mailto:mje at posix.co.za>>
Cc: "rpd" <rpd at afrinic.net<mailto:rpd at afrinic.net>>
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:34:14 AM
Subject: Re: [rpd] Inbound Policy

Dear All,
Thanks for authors for this proposal and presentation.
I don't support this proposal policy.
Best Regards,

2016-11-29 8:28 GMT+00:00 Mark Elkins <mje at posix.co.za<mailto:mje at posix.co.za>>:
I support this policy.

I was quite surprised by people's comments at the microphone - which
seemed to be more being against the proposed than the policy itself.

Logic should dictate that this policy passes.
--
Mark James ELKINS  -  Posix Systems - (South) Africa
mje at posix.co.za<mailto:mje at posix.co.za>       Tel: +27.128070590  Cell: +27.826010496
For fast, reliable, low cost Internet in ZA: https://ftth.posix.co.za<https://ftth.posix.co.za/>

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