[rpd] IPv4 Soft Landing BIS

[Noah]

On 28 Jul 2017 10:01 a.m., "Owen DeLong" <owen at delong.com> wrote:


On Jul 27, 2017, at 23:17 , Noah <noah at neo.co.tz> wrote:

Hi Community,

Lets put our chief opposers of the softlanding policies aside for a second..


Yes… This is a typical tactic that you have repeatedly attempted. Let’s
brush aside anyone who doesn’t agree with us and pretend that their
arguments either don’t exist, have no merit, or can otherwise simply be
ignored.



No no Owen. Opposition is good dont get me wrong which is why I clearly and
openly crown you and Andrew as opposers while i am a supporter.



Unfortunately for you, the co-chairs don’t have this option. They must
consider all community input no matter how much authors don’t like it.



Co-chairs will determine between opposers and support what is rational and
determine for us the way forward. So again dont get me wrong.



I am not sure if I will make sense but let me try to present a case below.


This is simply too easy and rather than comment, I will let the statement
stand on its own merits for others to interpret as they see fit.

We supporters of an updated Softlanding policy believe in the impact that a
public IP address can have on our peoples lives.


So do the opposers.


Ack


Its a fact that an IP address has been responsible for the creation of jobs
and most of you if not all of you in this community in one way or another
are positively affected by the internet.


Yes… So let’s not deny those abilities to real providers creating real
networks and services today in favor of keeping them on the shelf for some
future provider that may or may not even actually exist in this imaginary
future.



No one is going to deny any existing LIR or PI member the ability to apply
for additional resorces.

In the grand scheme of things, everyone would be able to apply for the
resources and get them on a need basis.




Our governements though the LIR's and PI resource members of  Afrinic
collect taxes from this businesses hence develop our respective countries.


You are again continuing to make the same case that we opposers are making
against this policy. Perhaps we don’t disagree so much as I thought..


Like i said, i have my views and you have yours.



The IP address has enabled egoverment and now the administrative state can
serve citizens through egov services thereby increase government effeciency
and more and more of our African governments are putting information online.


The IP address is responsible for research and education institutes today
across the continent to communicate and share ideas and our scholars are
able to interact by means of the African Internet.


The IP address has enabled access to information beyond our reach and this
access to information is enabling our people effect socio-economic and
political change.


The IP address has enabled ecommerse and has empowered local fintech
innovations like mobile money which has fundamentally had a profound effect
on our peoples lives.

The Internet that is a social media enabler has enabled young men and women
across this continent to access a local market and trade online on
ecommerce platforms where they dont have to own physical stores/shops but
they can market and sale their products online and deliver the same to the
buyers.

With a surge in high unemployments rates across sub-sahara Africa, many
unemployed graduates are finding a reason to hope as platforms like
Instagram, facebook and others are enabling them to access followers who in
one or another have turned out to be a customer or client base.

Our local musicians today are reaching a far bigger audience that has
enabled them grow their artistic talent beyond Africa and our Afrobeat
music and house music is now listened and enjoyed by folks from all works
of life. They are enabling us change our story.

The IP address bas enables our friends who come to tour our beautiful
continent access to more local information about our various countries
thereby enabling us collect revenue and create jobs and build our
hospitality industry.


On all of this we agree. These arguments are, in fact, the best drivers for
my opposition to this proposed policy because it will interfere with the
continued deployment of all of these things.


How will it interfear yet we are saying resources will continue to be
allocated under this policy on need basis as has been but with some
mechanism in place that enables others who may need also get the resources.

When Afrinic opened doors back in 2004, did everyone on this continent get
all resources at the same time?

There are startups that cropped up later in the past 5 years with the
arrival of the submarine fiber and have been able to also get some
resources because the process was always on need basis and not on rush rush
and deplete.



Lets not kid ourselves. As the vendors continue fixing the IPv6 software
stacks, IPv4 still works and IPv4 will not be less useful anytime soon
because vendors across the board still make a killing out of IPv4.


Um? You do realize that IPv4 doesn’t actually work significantly better
than IPv6 in the vast majority of software stacks, right?



Ack that IPv6 is superior improvement but that is besided the point. The
lesser IPv4 is the status quo today and will remain as such in this Africa
continent because Africa is not India or China but more than 50 sovereign
states each with its own local laws and socio-economic  and political
policies.



You do realize that when IPv4 was only 20 years old, it suffered from even
more grievous problems than the worst problems with IPv6 today, right?
You do realize that IPv6 works well enough that Facebook, Google, Comcast,
and every major cloud provider are now supporting it, right?



I do realise all that but let me ask you one quastion.

Do you think facebook or Google whose business is based on numbers will
look aside and ignore a African market that has more than 1billion people
that still access their services using IPv4.

They are earlier adopters and late adopters will also catch up as factors
that affect USA based companies are not the same factors that affect
Afrinican based companies.

Africa is a completely different market than America or Europe for that
matter.




Claiming “IPv4 still works” as if “IPv6 doesn’t” is absurd at best and
disinformation at worst.



IPv4 works and I am sending you this email from my IPv4 capable android
handset whose software stack unfortunately doesnt have support for IPv6 nor
does my date provider.

In fact even in the office, this phones doesnt support IPv6 of the wifi
even thought my macbook pro does support and gets IPv6 addresses through
the same dual-stack wifi network.



Actually, I don’t think it’s going to be all that long before IPv4 is less
useful.



Yes in North America but not in the African continent with over 50 states
with different economic conditions.



You see, big eyeball providers are already starting to see the excessive
costs of IPv4 and the cost reductions that are possible with IPv6
monostack. Once a little more critical mass is available on the content
side, the cost-benefit equation will actually lead to many of them finding
ways to discourage their customers from using IPv4 and/or turning off IPv4
services for those customers.



Ack and we all wait for that time. Africa is over a billion, China is over
a billion and india is over a  billion.


At the very least, as IPv4 moves to more and more CGN and centralization,
greater concentration of fate sharing, and a continuing reduction in
performance due to centralization and layers of NAT, IPv4 will start to
become less and less usable in the very near future. If you read the State
of the Internet report you will see that these impacts are already
measurable. If you want, there are other reports from Potaroo and other
sources that also show this.



Owen i have read this reports believe me but am telling you that your
reality is not my reality.



Big telecoms have invested in legacy equipmemts and still returning their
investments.


If your equipment is less than 10 years old, you can probably put IPv6 on
it. You might need a software upgrade.
If your equipment is less more than 10 years old but less than 20, you may
be stuck with an inappropriate depreciation schedule which makes it more
difficult, but that’s a management problem that shouldn’t be all that hard
to address if you simply go fess up to the CFO with accurate information.
Certainly starting now will turn out better for you than starting later.


Different enviroment and different economies.



Big internet companies that depends on global numbers which are mainly
still accessible via the IPv4 internet wont risk loosing this market.


If the cost exceeds the benefit, you bet they will. IPv4 represents a
rising cost per service in an environment of declining revenues.



Ack


Some startups will be seeking addresses to atleast support critical
infrastucture like DNS and Web servers if there is none from Afrinic, you
be forced to pay more expensively from those who have the space.


This is a simple reality. Denying addresses to present need in order to
protect these johnny-come-lately startups that may not even materialize is
absurd. Further, the cost of IPv4 will eventually drive startups to ignore
the IPv4 market in favor of simply implementing IPv6 only. There’s no harm
in this. There’s greater innovation and better services possible to
consumers on IPv6.



No one is denying anyone addresses. Everone gets on need basis.



Facebook, youtube,uber,twitter,google,instagram,apple,microsoft,airbnb to
name but a few are software companies that have created jobs and are making
millions of dollars and affecting lives because the Ip addresses made it
possible.


Nearly every name on that list is operating on IPv6. Facebook is
aggressively turning off IPV4 wherever they can.

The IP address is what makes you and me pay our bills within our domain of
ICT.


Really? I challenge you to prove this. For me, the transit service I
receive from my provider is what makes me pay my ISP bill. I don’t even get
my addresses from them.
[Technically I get one IPv4 address from them which I use to terminate
tunnels and a handful of IPv6 addresses which I don’t actually use at all
yet. However, I will be migrating my tunnels to v4/v6 over GREv6 eventually]

There million dollar IPv4 transfer market is here to stay and late
entreprenuers and startups will pay more expensively for an IP address post
IPv4 exhaustion which could potentially discourage investment in the IP
related investments.


The million dollar IPv4 transfer market is actually already starting to
show significant reductions in availability and in order for a market to
continue, you need not only demand (which I believe will somewhat remain),
but you also need supply. Now it’s true that supply will ebb and flow with
increases in the price per address, but at some point, the cost of an IPv4
address will exceed the ROI and even the last hold-outs will recognize that
it’s simply too expensive to continue ignoring IPv6.

The last IPv4 address ought to be handled with care hence further
recommendation on how to deal with this depletion scenario.


Again, I agree with the sentiment, but this proposal is the opposite of
proper care.

We can deplete fast but if any one of you tomorrow wants IP addresses and
cant get them from Afrinic, you will be forced to dance to the IPv4 brokers
pricing.


Actually, the brokers aren’t setting the prices. The brokers are middle-men
taking a commission on each transaction. It is the people who are willing
to free up addresses from their networks and make them available who are
setting the price.



Brokes dont and will never benefit us. Afrinic does benefit the contient
and its members.



You will be forced to look up to IPv4 brokers for address space and the
IPv4 broker will not trade space the same way Afrinic does.


Actually, if you can find someone who will make addresses available to you
by sale or trade without involving a broker, you are free to do so. Many
such transactions have occurred in at least 3 of the other RIRs.


To the benefit of brokers.


Perhaps you should check your facts before posting such inaccurate data.


an example fyi

https://www.apnic.net/manage-ip/manage-resources/transfer-
resources/transfer-facilitators/

https://laruscloudservice.net/offer-ip-for-sell

http://www.hilcostreambank.com/ipv4-brokerage



IPv4 is still relevant than you will ever imagine save for the rhetoric
around how IPv4 is legacy and not needed meanwhile millions of dollars are
exchanging hands in the IPv4 tranfer market.


IPv4 is relevant today. In 2 years, I think its relevance will begin to
decline sharply. In 5 years, I think we will see a very different
environment. Ignoring this fact and basing policy decisions for the future
only on the past and present is a perilous venture.



So you assume. No one is ignoring anything. We run an extensive network in
Africa and I am on the ground in African and i understand what am talking
about from the perspective of Africa.

But your assumption above is based on your own experience in North America
and I am telling you this are 2 different enviroments.

America is a country, Africa is more than 50 soverign states.



I know its a long one and i could go on but these are my 2cents community.


So it seems you support and I oppose this proposal for many of the same
reasons. This is actually good news. It’s not uncommon for people of good
conscience to come to different conclusions presented the same facts based
on the difference in their experiences.



Ack


It appears that you have some errant beliefs about how the transfer markets
work and about the future of IPv4. Perhaps if you take a wider and more
objective view of the inherent realities of the economics of IPv4 (suggest
you review Lee Howard’s presentation on Per User Per Year costing of IPv4
from the Denver INET meeting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXf8ZIew1j0

This is from 2013 and his projections haven’t been 100% realized yet, but
only the rate of cost increase differs. All of the trends are going in the
directions he predicted, just somewhat slower than forecast.


Again, he is speaking from the perspective on the enviroment he is familiar
with.



Owen



Noah
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