[rpd] Leases and Flexibility

[Paul Hjul]

Hi Noah,
What you describe sounds nice if you are one of the established ISPs who
are running a top to bottom network. However you can not say the same
for smaller enterprises, too small to be an LIR, and unable to run full
operations profitably, giving inability to afford the RIR/AFRINIC fees. I
feel total reliance on network providers/carriers also limits flexibility,
which goes more along the line of thinking from the ITU, than the spirit of
the Internet, as set by the early pioneers of the Internet.
No textbook analogy. IP leasing can allow the enterprise/organizations
certain flexibility in administration. Like having a single contiguous
range to numbers on all their interfaces and infrastructure either locally
and across the cloud, for better administration and scaling of their
network they need. This way all their IPs are unique and contiguous, and
they can number their offices networks, servers, VPN etc. for easy
management.
So Yes, fully (physical)provider independent. Without the physical
connection to provider being involved, that provider will still be there of
course, but the end user is not forced to number their LAN with that
provider's IP addresses.
On another note, AFRINIC itself would give out such IP addresses as
assignments with the same justifications, These provider-independent
address space (PI) has some limitations in the current CPM. The PIs
assignments are also called "leasing", and well.
AFRINIC as a non profit organisation should not place itself in direct
competition with its members.
Resource owners are restricted from leasing, while the registry can lease
out space as described in the policy, placing AFRINIC in a very awkward
situation.

*Best Regards,*


*Anthony*

Wholeheartedly agree


Two points on this though:
[1] The scenario of "top to bottom" providers who think of themselves in a
telco-esque mindset is really deleterious to a competitive market and is
not beneficial to consumers. Members of RIRs serve a function as an LIR not
as an "operator who leases number resources from the RIR", it should be
perfectly possible for an enterprise to contract with multiple companies
one of which is an LIR to get the various resources that enterprise needs
for their ICT services.
[2] Even in the telco space this sort of ITU-esque thinking is under
revision - the mantra amongst telco CEOs is "becoming a techco".

The thinking will mean that transitioning to IPv6 on the continent will
continue to be behind global trends.

There certainly is space for a discussion as to whether there should be
policies as to the nature of relationship between LIR and customer but the
implicit big lie advanced by some on this group is that operators aren't
indirectly charging their customers for the utilization of the "integers".
My argument is that such polices are unlikely to be properly framed or
scoped and will generally backfire but its a legitimate discussion if
people want to have it. There is also certainly discussion to be had as to
requiring LIRs to undertake IPv6 operations which is something I am
strongly in favour of.
However that isn't the engagement that is happening.

It is also probably worth reiterating that a situation in which there is
major allocation fragmentation to member providers who are small operators
really only serves to produce large membership fee collections and would
inevitably line the pockets of several insiders.

I had actually forgot that Afrinic leases out address space on
non-commercial terms under section 9 of the CPM and yes its further
illustration of things.

Paul
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