[rpd] More confusion from Noah

[Noah]

On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 1:06 AM Anthony Ubah <ubah.tonyiyke at gmail.com> wrote:


> Hi Noah,

>

>

Hi Oga Ubah,



> 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.

>


RIR membership fees are annual and AFRINIC today has close to 200 resource
members across the region both large and small.

I know a good number of small enterprises across the eastern coast of
Africa that get sub-allocations of /29, /28, /26 to /24 from ISP (LIR's)
providing them with connectivity or hosting services. This practise is
common and it enables such small enterprises who don't need to become
AFRINIC resource members to enjoy internet related services through ISP or
hosting providers infrastructure on the continent.

I similarly know of hyperscalers who provide compute and storage services
across their infrastructure to a wide range of customers and each service
comes with some assignment of an integer which is fundamental to provision
of the IP related services of (compute, storage, applications) enabled by
integer wrapped in the service to enable IP communication. Customers are
not paying hyperscalers or hosting providers for an integer but a service.

AFRINIC Bylaws Section 3.4) Sections i. and iii. Below talk about *enabling
communication to assist in the development of the Internet in Africa and
promote responsible management of number resources* and not
leasing/brokering.


*i. to provide the service of allocating and registering Internet resources
for the purposes of enabling communications via open system network
protocols and to assist in the development and growth of the Internet in
the African region;*


*iii. to promote responsible management of Internet resources throughout
the African region, as well as the responsible development and operation of
Internet infrastructures; *



> I feel total reliance on network providers/carriers also limits flexibility

>


As far as I am concerned, we have had multiple customers who wanted their
own managed INR beyond what we as an LIR can sub-allocate as part of the
connectivity services they enjoy from us and we encouraged and guided them
to seek small blocks from AFRINIC. This turned out to be a much cheaper
alternative than going to brokers and folks who lease each IPv4 for 30USD
without providing any Internet related service to the customer beyond
dashing out IP's with LOA's.

AFRINIC FYI, does more than just allocating and managing INR. Read Bylaws
section 3.4 in full to understand her complete objectives as an RIR for
this region.



>

> 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.

>


Ooooh well.... last I checked ... AFRINIC is provider Independent and has
alway been.

So I encourage you to encourage those enterprises to reach out to AFRINIC.
All they need is to become resource members, sign an RSA and justify their
needs and they will be served.  AFRINIC manager INR transfers within the
region as well.



>

> 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.

>


There is no language in the CPM that indicates that PI assignments are also
called *leasing*. Please point me to such a language.

However, Section 9.0 talks of temporary assignments of not more than one
month in section 9.2 and this is often done by AFRINIC to support Internet
related events and capacity building and education activities through
various Af* initiatives (AIS, NOG's etc) as per the Bylaws section 3.4 iv.)
v.) and vi.).

This short term assignment as far I know is done for free and AFRINIC does
not charge the temporary requesters any fees.




>

> AFRINIC as a non profit organisation should not place itself in direct

> competition with its members.

>


Which members is AFRINIC competing with exactly?




> Resource owners are restricted from leasing,

>


There is no such thing as a Resource owner. What there is, is Membership.

*Bylaws section 6.1 subsection i.) talks of Membership as below.*



6) *MEMBERSHIP*

6.1) Subject to the other provisions of this Article, membership shall be
open to:


*i. any Person who is geographically based within, and providing services
in the African region, and who is engaged in the use of, or business of
providing, open system protocol network services;*

So to break down the above for you, the language talks of *engaged in
the use of* and not leasing or brokering IPv4's but rather ''*use of*"
meaning using the IP  to provide internet related services in the Afrinic
region on some network or system infrastructure.

while the registry can lease out space as described in the policy, placing

> AFRINIC in a very awkward situation.

>


AFRINIC does not lease, it allocates to LIR's and assigns members who seek
PI INR's....

CPM Section 5.4.6.2 reads as below and still talks of *use*


*5.4.6.2 AFRINIC resources are for AFRINIC service region and any use
outside the region should be solely in support of connectivity back to the
AFRINIC region*


Cheers,
Noah
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