[rpd] Soft Landing-SD (AFPUB-2017-V4-001-DRAFT-02)

Tue Apr 11 10:51:49 UTC 2017

Douglas,

Your argument is flawed with regards to the 93%.

Here is why - 

If we are talking about a per allocation basis there will always be more small allocations than large ones.  However, if we are aiming to promote internet penetration and we are talking about who is reaching the consumers - those who have justified, and used, larger blocks - will inevitably be connecting more consumers.   Furthermore, for these numbers to have real meaning:

Can you 

a.) Break the numbers down between LIR and PI issued space 
b.) Demonstrate that the large allocations are any less utilized today than the small allocations are

the NUMBERS of allocations and the size of them do not mean ANYTHING with the explosion of growth in FTTH services and the like - because at the end of the day - its about increasing the ability of the African consumer to access services - and if we're not focused on ensuring THAT happens, we've lost the plot.

I don't see the point about how smaller allocations vs larger ones have any bearing on the penetration level to the end consumer

Andrew

-----Original Message-----
From: Douglas Onyango [mailto:ondouglas at gmail.com] 
Sent: 11 April 2017 09:58
To: Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com>
Cc: rpd <rpd at afrinic.net>
Subject: Re: [rpd] Soft Landing-SD (AFPUB-2017-V4-001-DRAFT-02)

Hello Owen,
Thanks for your feedback,
Comments are inline:-

On 10 April 2017 at 13:21, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> I believe that the problem statement remains fundamentally flawed and 
>that  the resulting policy suffers from those flaws. Clarification 
>in-line  below...
>.
>
> Specifically, the current Softlanding Policy:
>
> Allows a maximum allocation size of a /13 in Phase 1. The authors feel 
> this is too large based on average allocation size, and can be abused.
>
> Please define the perceived "abuse" and explain how it constitutes abuse.
> Note, I feel that use of loaded terms like "abuse" to describe "a 
> result we don't like" is disingenuous and contrary to open and 
> transparent policy development.

To abuse to use improperly, or to misuse. I don’t see why you think this is a loaded term.

On the meaning and use, we believe that Internet resources are supposed to be used for the greater good of the AFRINIC community.
Based on staff analysis, 93% of the 1,373 v4 requests requests in the last 5 years were for blocks smaller than a /16. As authors we believe that any policy that favours the 7% of members at the expense of the 93% is what is not  in the best interest of the greater AFRINIC community.

You have seen nefarious elements go as far as hijacking unused v4 prefixes, so telling ourselves that they won’t come for large chunks of v4, if no limits are set, especially for this last pool, then we would be burying our heads in the sand.

However, we were careful with any restrictions. Based on our analysis more than 93% of organization/requests in the past 5 years could be served without a problem if this policy is passed, which represents the greater AFRINIC community.

>
> Allows organizations to request allocations/assignments without 
> limiting the number of times or maximum size that can be requested. 
> The authors of this policy feel this can advantage a few, mostly large 
> organizations, at the expense of the general community, and can also be abused.
>
> This perpetuates the myth that large organizations don't serve the 
> general community when in reality, depending on the organization, in 
> some cases, large organizations serve the biggest fractions of the general community.
> While I can't cite specific examples within the AfriNIC region, I will 
> point out that a /8 being held by a fruit company  in Cupertino 
> (ticker symbol
> AAPL)  (large-ish organization that serves a very small fraction of 
> the IP-using community) is probably a very poor use of resources. 
> OTOH, /8s held by various large ISPs actually serve very large 
> fractions of the internet community in the region. Organization size 
> alone is not an effective measure of benefit offered to the community for addresses consumed.

Apologies if we gave this impression. We have tried our level best to cater for large organizations. While it is impractical to cater for all members at all times, we have catered for 93% of them based on requests from the last 5 years We feel that this is representative of the greater good.

>
> The current policy does not "advantage" large organizations in any  way.
> True, you can't fill as many large requests from the remaining free 
> pool as you can smaller requests, but the reality is that customer 
> growth is likely to be roughly the same over the same period of time 
> regardless of whether those customers are connected to a few large 
> providers or a whole lot of smaller ones.
>
> Preventing larger providers from obtaining addresses for their 
> customers in order to protect the abilities of smaller providers to 
> serve smaller blocks of customers is arguably not so much leveling the 
> playing field as it is creating an advantage for smaller providers at the expense of larger ones.

We are not preventing larger providers from obtaining addresses for their clients, Like we've stated in our proposal,  the current statistics shows that a significant percentage of current members got space less than a /16.  All factors constant, only 7% of the requests MIGHT not be met with this policy passing. However, we believe the interest of the greater community would have been served.

>
> Does not make any specific provisions for new entrants. The authors 
> feel that this might advantage existing organizations at the expense 
> of new entrants.
>
> Please explain why this is a bad thing? Why should we create 
> additional hardships for existing organizations with real needs now on 
> the basis that there might be some other organization that doesn't 
> even exist now which might need addresses at some later date?

Perhaps our choice of wording maybe at fault here, but we have attempted to make provisions for new entrants without creating significant hardship for the existing organizations. From the  5-year analysis, we should be able to accommodate 93% of requesters, which we feel represents the greater community of existing users. We have been careful to make sure any such provision is not at the expense of existing users, this is the reason we proposed allocation/assignment rounds within phases. So that if a pool still has resources, anyone is free to request for more, after a wait period.

From the Policy Authors.
Regards,

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