[rpd] IPv4 Soft Landing BIS

[Owen DeLong]

> On Jul 29, 2017, at 10:21 , Mark Tinka <mark.tinka at seacom.mu> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 29/Jul/17 18:29, Jackson Muthili wrote:
> 
>> I admire your subtlety and rationale behind your reasoning.
>> 
>> A scarce resource needs to be distributed fairly.
>> 
>> The situation we are in now can result in a few big companies
>> depleting the entire continent's scarce resource at the expense of
>> those smaller but growing companies that will need but will not
>> afford. Arguments about imaginary operators are flawed. There is
>> current many small operators that constitute majority of AfriNIC
>> membership who will be maligned at the expense of those that can
>> potentially consume most of the scarce resource.
> 
> I am concerned that the proposal is forecasting future demand in lieu of focusing on the (near-) present. 
> 
> But I do believe that it is not completely unreasonable to find a fair mechanism to distribute the remaining bits of IPv4 (for various use cases, perhaps not being overly aggressive at not only singling out some being more important than others, but also being more conservative about their fare share of the remaining space) while at the same time pushing for quick and early implementation of IPv6.

I agree with this idea. However, I don’t believe that the proposal under discussion as currently written comes close to this goal and, in fact, I believe it moves from the status quo in the opposite direction.

> In fact, if there is a way to write the proposal such that it encourages the implementation of IPv6, that is an avenue worth exploring. I know there is language in the current proposal to suggest that an LIR or End User must demonstrate ownership of an IPv6 allocation (and if one is absent, obtain one as part of the IPv4 allocation application), but I think this is a bit is weak if we want to leverage the proposal to promote IPv6.

Yes… If the proposal is going to require v6, it should require real customer deployment of v6 and not merely the acquisition of a block of v6 space.

However, more importantly, I think that the unfair manner in which this proposal distributes the remaining bits of IPv4 is the bigger issue. I support the idea of a proposal which makes fair distribution of v4. I have no problem, for example, with a proposal that would limit each applicant to a maximum of /n per request (where n can be determined by the community) so long as a requestor for whom /n was not sufficient to meet his immediate need could get back in line for additional space as soon as he could show utilization of that /n to whatever percentage (even the 90% currently proposed would be fine IMHO, though I think 80% is more realistic). The idea that a requestor can ask for an 8 month justification and then must wait an additional 24 months before getting in line again is grossly unfair to any rapidly growing eyeball ISP in the region.
>> We must apply the principle of distributive justice toward a
>> resource that has become scarce. It is only fair.
> 
> Well, one way is to let the remaining space float and be allocated based on current active policies. While I can see the case for this, I believe that despite Africa not being necessarily a unique case in the grand scheme of Internet things, it does present an opportunity for us to do/try something different that best utilizes the remaining IPv4 space, but not at the expense of IPv6; rather, in favor of it.

I agree. I also feel that it should not be at the expense of fairness in allocation policy.

Owen

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