[rpd] RPD Digest, Vol 135, Issue 58

[Owen DeLong]

> On Dec 11, 2017, at 20:46 , Kangamutima zabika Christophe <funga.roho at yandex.com> wrote:
> 
> OWEN and LU,
>  
> Derrière toute cette théorie sur les politiques de gestion des ressources numériques, se cachent malheureusement des gros intérêts financiers. Malheureusement, pour nous l'Afrique, dans tous les domaines nous avons toujours victime des prédateurs qui viennent comme civilisateurs aulieu de colonisateurs, investisseurs au lieu des pillards, etc. Et ceci se reproduit parfaitement concernant les ressources numériques actuelles.
> Je très sceptique sur les intentions de plusieurs personnes qui prétendent agir au nom et pour le compte de l'intérêt général de la communauté africaine. Nous avons plutôt à faire plusieurs vautours qui ont compris que cette montagne des ressources numériques inexploitées n'intéressent pas les entités gouvernementales en afrique (sauf dans des pôles de croissance comme l'afrique du sud, l'egypte, un peu le nigeria, le ghana et le kenya) encore moins les vrais opérateurs économiques africains (hormis pour les pays que j'ai cité précedemment). 
> Et même si on parlait des FAI, combien y a t il de ses structures qui appartiennent vraiment à des africains (sauf dans les pays que j'ai cité précedemment).
> Si Afrinic devrait faire un audit approfondi de l'utilisation des ressources attribuées à tous ces membres, il y aurait à boire et à manger. Parceque au delà de ceux qui font de la rétention d'adresses (il s'agit du droit d'utilisation pas de propriété), il y a aussi des fournisseurs d'accès qui ont beaucoup d'adresses IPv4 ne trouvant pas des preneurs. Moi, mon opérateur m'a dernièrement informé qu'il disposait même des blocs d'adresses IPv6 (avec du personnel formé) mais que la demande d'adresses était quasi nulle.
>  
> A mon avis, l'un des grands défis ce serait d'abord d'avoir des structures de production de contenu à grande échelle (basé en afrique, créer par des africains, pour des africains). A ce moment là le marché pourait presque se réguler tout seul. 
> Parceque lorsque vous avez des entités comme google avec des ASN hébergeant jusqu'à un million d'adresses IP, certaines choses se régleront d'elles-mêmes. 
> si nous les africains, nous pourrions nous efforcer ne fut ce que copier les autres, nous en ressortirions grand. La russie l'a fait avec yandex.com, la chine l'a fait avec baidu, la france aussi a tenté l'expérience avec qwant.fr
> Même s'il faudrait créer des structures à petite échelle mais qu'elles existent.
>  
> KANGAMUTIMA ZABIKA
>  
>  
> Behind all this theory on the management of digital resources, unfortunately are hiding big financial interests. Unfortunately, for us Africa, in all areas we have always fallen victim to predators who come as civilizers instead of colonizers, investors instead of looters, etc. And this is mirrored in the current digital resources.

While I understand your historical concerns and agree that they are 100% valid, I don’t think that is what is happening here. There is pretty clear policy that AfriNIC only issues resources for use by organizations with a presence in Africa and primarily for use connecting Africa to the internet. I see no evidence whatsoever that AfriNIC resources are being looted or significantly used outside of Africa for purposes other than to benefit the internet in Africa.

If you have any evidence that this is the case, please present it as I am open to having my opinion changed in light of actual evidence.

> I am very skeptical about the intentions of many people who claim to act in the name and on behalf of the general interest of the African community. Instead, we have several vultures to understand that this mountain of untapped digital resources does not interest government entities in Africa (except in growth poles such as South Africa, Egypt, a little bit of Nigeria, ghana and kenya) even less true African economic operators (except for the countries I mentioned above).

Well, good. I’m skeptical as well. I’m also disturbed by the lack of interest, to be honest as that lack of interest is certainly not in the best interests of the citizens that these governments are supposed to serve. Nonetheless, I think there is pretty clear evidence that I am not a vulture. Neither I, nor my organization have any space directly from AfriNIC. What little space we do have that was issued to us by AfriNIC members is entirely used to operate infrastructure in Africa serving people in Africa. In fact, we have deployed significant resources from other RIRs within Africa to further serve people in Africa. I believe that the service we provide in Africa does provide economic and social benefit to the people of Africa. I’m don’t know if you would define Akamai as a “true African economic operator” or not, but I believe we provide an economic benefit to Africa from our African operations and I believe that my track record in the RPD process and on the RPD list shows that I have consistently worked towards what I believe to be in the best interests of the African Internet Community. While I accept that we may in all good faith disagree about those best interests, I do not think you can say that I have ever acted in bad faith, nor can you say that my opinion is not subject to change in light of additional evidence.

> And even if we talk about ISPs, how many of its structures really belong to Africans (except in the countries I mentioned earlier).

Why must those countries be considered exceptions? Because they are more developed do they suddenly become excluded from the African community? A community which deports all who advance seems like a very self-limiting community indeed. This seems like a very self-destructive approach to determining community memberhsip.

> If Afrinic should do a thorough audit of the use of the resources allocated to all these members, there would be food and drink. Because beyond those who do address retention (this is the right to use no property), there are also access providers that have many IPv4 addresses not finding takers. My operator recently informed me that he even had blocks of IPv6 addresses (with trained personnel) but that the address request was almost nil.

Of course the address requests for IPv6 within Africa are nearly nil right now because most providers do not offer services over IPv6 within Africa and even fewer end users even know what IPv6 is, let alone how to ask for it. Nonetheless, the providers that have deployed IPv6 are seeing substantial traffic on IPv6 and it is growing.
 
> In my opinion, one of the big challenges would be to have large-scale content production structures (based in Africa, created by Africans, for Africans). At that moment, the market could almost be regulated by itself.

A worthy and lofty goal to be sure. I encourage this goal be pursued. However, it will be nearly impossible to achieve that goal in an IPv4-only network at this point in time. Failure to recognize that will surely delay the success of any such effort.

> Because when you have entities like google with ASNs hosting up to a million IP addresses, some things will work out on their own.

I don’t know what Google has deployed within Africa. To be honest, I don’t even know exactly how many addresses Akamai is using to serve content in Africa, but I would bet that it is likely more than a million IPv4 addresses and an even larger number of IPv6 addresses. We serve hundreds of gigabits of content within Africa every second of every day.

> if we Africans, we could strive were not that copy others, we would come out great. Russia did it with yandex.com, china did it with baidu, France also tried the experiment with qwant.fr
> Even though small-scale structures should be created but they exist.

I look forward to the days when your vision becomes reality. However, I would still say that policy such as Soft Landing bis can only stand in the way of what you desire, not aid it.

Owen