[rpd] IPv4 Soft Landing BIS

Sun Jul 30 16:04:34 UTC 2017

> On Jul 29, 2017, at 09:31 , Noah <noah at neo.co.tz> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 28 Jul 2017 10:52 p.m., "Owen DeLong" <owen at delong.com <mailto:owen at delong.com>> wrote:
> 
>> In the grand scheme of things, everyone would be able to apply for the resources and get them on a need basis.
> 
> The first part of this statement is true. The latter part is specifically not true under this proposal.
> 
> Specifically, the second part of the statement is contrary to 5.4.3.1, 5.4.3.2, 5.4.5, and most especially 5.4.6.
> 
> (source: https://www.afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development/policy-proposals/2153-ipv4-soft-landing-bis <https://www.afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development/policy-proposals/2153-ipv4-soft-landing-bis> for those who wish to review it)
> 
> So where is the draft policy is any existing network denied ability to get resources?
> 
> Limiting how much an existing or new entrant gets allocated is the very purpose of this policy proposal of which both existing and new get space at the same cost.

But the limits aren’t the same.

> While you are saying that resources will continue to be allocated, you are making this look black and white while there are many shades of grey available.
> 
> This proposal (as stated above) places significant restrictions and reductions on this allocation process and places existing networks at an extreme disadvantage. It prevents existing network operators from getting additional space more than once every 2 years, while only allowing them to get 8 months worth of address space, for example.
> 
> 
> Yes and that is the purpose so that also new entrants get the opportunity to get IPv4 space that can enable them have access the legacy network which the existing networks already have access too.

Which is exactly what I have said… I have said that the purpose of this policy is to deny resources to existing members with present need to subsidize future entrants which may or may not exist. I fully understand that is exactly your intent and I have understood same from the beginning. I oppose that intent.

>> 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.
> 
> Sure, but I don’t see how that justifies saying no to providers that exist today and creating an artificial shortage today to prevent providers that don’t exist from experiencing that shortage many years in the future. It’s this part of the policy proposal that simply doesn’t make any sense to me. Can you please explain the logic of doing that to me?
> 
> I just told you that between 2004 and 2017,  Afrinic has been able to allocate space to new startups across the continent and that is because IPv4 space continues to be available through out this period. 

And they did so without denying space to providers that already existed.

> We are telling you that new entrants will need access to legacy IPv4 internet and Afrinic can make that possible with the last /8.

Only by denying space to existing providers that need it.

> We are telling you that new startups may not necessarily afford the IPv4 transfer market prices compared to what Afrinic would charge them for membership. The cost from Afrinic is the same for both new applicant and existing network.

Except that you are assuming that existing providers are better able to afford the transfer market pricing and therefore you think it reasonable to force them to the transfer market while allowing new startups to obtain more resources from AfriNIC.

This is where we disagree and one of the reasons I oppose this policy. It’s not that I don’t see the policy as being helpful to new entrants, it’s that the policy is helpful to new entrants at the direct disadvantage of existing providers. Further, it predetermines a number of new entrants it will help without any factual basis for determining this number of new entrants.

> We also telling you that existing members can still get additional resources with justification after they have maximised what they currently have at the same cost as new entrant.

Except that you are limiting the amount of resources they can get to a smaller amount than what is available to new entrants.

>> 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.
> 
> So you are advocating for Africa to once again become disenfranchised from the world internet by being held back by this disadvantageous protocol even as the rest of the world moves forward with IPv6? Isn’t this the kind of attitude that would get someone of my skin color branded as a colonialist?
> 
> 
> There you go again.  English is foreign to me but let me try this again.
> 
> Majority of African Internet is routed using the so called legacy IPv4 today and even tomorrow when I wake up from sleep it will be the case. So as much as IPv6 is catching some ground in Africa I will still wake up to a larger IPv4 internet.

But the African internet is not an ecosystem unto itself. The majority of Africans are using the internet in Africa to access content all over the world, not just in Africa. Further, what content there is in Africa you have already admitted is desirable to be available to the rest of the world. In order for that to be possible, Africa must be running the same version of IP as everyone else in the world. If Africa stays on IPv4 while the rest of the world starts turning off IPv4, then Africa will become disenfranchised.

If you believe this is not the case, please explain how you see that working.

> So no am not advocating anything beyond stating the reality and I want you to understand that deploying IPv6 will take time in our region for reasons beyond our own comprehension.

And I’m saying that I do not think the reasons are beyond our comprehension. I think the primary reason is a combination of lack of motivation to do so primarily due to failure to recognize the urgent necessity in large part due to the remaining free pool.

> So I am not here to show off with you on who understands what better.

Good to hear… After all, it was you who started with the statements about how you understand the region and I do not.

> You were the one who started with claiming that IPv4 still works while we are fixing IPv6. If you can’t remember that, I have retained your quote above my earlier statement here for context. (3 levels of quotation above my 2-level).
> 
> 
> I stand by may claims. This is not about how sweet and wonderful IPv6 is over IPv4. 
> 
> This is about the fact that the African Internet is extensively IPv4 with a few pockets of IPv6 internet which continues to be deployed sponteneously.

So is the internet in the rest of the world, but the rate of change IS accelerating everywhere and the fact that major providers in the rest of the world are now talking about strategies for turning off IPv4 and some of them are even beginning to implement those strategies should serve as a wakeup call to those in Africa who seem to believe that deploying IPv6 is not urgent.

> When the cost of maintaining an IPv4 infrastructure exceeds the value of those customers, I think they will do it in a heartbeat. However, I don’t believe that more than
> 1 billion Africans will still be IPv4-only in even 3 years. I believe that many of them will have IPv6, so the question becomes what fraction of Africa gets ignored at that
> time more than it is a question of ignoring all of Africa.
> 
> Further, that fraction is a monotonically decreasing fraction of the continent, making it progressively less and less valuable to these providers.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> I keep hearing this, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny quite as well as you seem to think.
> 
> We can agree to disagree….

In other words, you are sticking to your position, but cannot provide facts to back it up?

>> 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.
> 
> Wow… Must suck to be you… Sorry to hear that. IPv6 works too and I’m sending you this email from my IPv6 iMAC via my IPv6 enabled Linux Mail server running a very old version of Sendmail on Fedora.
> 
> I initially read your email on my IPv6 enabled iPhone which doesn’t even receive an IPv4 address from my cellular provider any more. It is 100% IPv6 only now. Any access to IPv4 sites or content is via NAT64.
> 
> 
> Owen this is not a competition lol.

True, but you seemed to think the fact that you were strictly using IPv4 to participate in this conversation was somehow relevant, so I figured I would point out that it was equally possible to participate in the conversation via IPv6.

>> 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.
> 
> So you believe it is good for Africa to again become isolated from the rest of the world? Really?
> 
> This is a global internet. If the rest of the internet starts turning off IPv4, then Africa either turns on IPv6 or becomes disconnected from the world. It’s as simple as that.
> 
> 
> Did anyone say that others on the internet are not making an effort to deploy IPv6 including those in Africa.

Not the point of the above sentence… Point is that as the world begins shutting off IPv4 (and that is already starting), those without IPv6 will become connected to less and less of the global internet. Creating an artificial incentive to extension to the lifetime of the IPv4 free-pool only increases this problem.

> Let those who are done with IPv4 turn it off but in case they want to access some legacy services still seated on IPv4 internet, tranlations mechanisms are in place.

What you don’t seem to be getting is that major services Africans seem to want to access are now looking at turning off IPv4. If those Africans don’t have IPv6, they will lose the ability to access any services which turn off IPv4. Let’s face it, the reality on the ground at least now and for some time to come is that there’s a lot more eyeball than content on the African continent. I hope that will change over time, but I think that change will take much longer than the transition to IPv6 based on current trends.

> Interesting… My reality is built from documented proven facts and statistics.
> 
> What is your reality built from?
> 
> 
> 
> My reality is from deploying an extensive dual-stack Africa network spanning across the eastern and western coasts of Africa into Europe, a network that servers majority IPv4 only customers today with a few of them making efforts to deploy IPv6 and transit through us.

Ah, so it is this single-provider perspective from which you suffer. Fair enough. Each of us can only develop our own perspective from our own experiences and that which we accept as valid information provided by others.

> Are you really suggesting that the performance and quality of IPv4 service is not degrading as the deployment and use of NAT increases? Really? Your reality seems most interesting, indeed.
> 
> Owen come on. Ok for the record, IPv6 is the best, happy now. But IPv4/NAT still exists and will continue to exist today and tomorrow.

I wasn’t trying to prove IPv6 is best. However, when I made a statement about the IPv4 internet being a case of decreasing performance and increasing cost, you denied it. Sure, IPv4/NAT exists and may continue for some time (will probably continue for a long time in isolated pockets), but that doesn’t change the fact that the more we NAT, the worse things get for the IPv4 internet in terms of performance, reliability, and utility.

If you want proof of this, look at the average end-user experience of the internet in India and compare it to, say, Latin America.

Both represent the developing world, but India has far more multi-layer NAT for a much larger fraction of its end users and the resulting damage is obvious.

Owen

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