[rpd] Unaddressed queries by AFRINIC during AGMM

[Fernando Frediani]

There are several points and places that make it cristal clear that the 
idea of IP Leasing is not just something absurd in terms of IP usage but 
also against different rules in place. However some keep repeating the 
words are not written in the way "they" would like to read and ignoring 
all that just because that might go against their business.

All that Noah put below makes sense even to a newbie in Internet 
Business so any company who need smaller allocations get them from their 
LIR which provides connectivity and that's the main propose these LIRs 
justified the need of these addresses when they were request to AfriNic. 
These business are developing internet in Africa by allocating internet 
resources for the purposes of enabling communications which is also 
provided by these same businesses. What communications are enabled by a 
member who has unused resources and is renting it to another member - or 
worst - in many cases to *a member of another RIR elsewhere* - therefore 
out of the region?

What promotion of responsible management of Internet resources is being 
done *throughout the African region* when a member simply rent these 
resources to someone out of the region ? What development and operation 
of Internet infrastructure is being done in Africa ?

Every unused resource with hold by a member is one chunk of less of 
resources in AfriNic's pool. What is the point of exhausting that pool 
completely and force newcomers to pay a higher price for the same 
resources they could get directly from AfriNic if these unused resources 
simply used for renting would have been returned back to AfriNic pool ? 
AfriNic looses newer members and in turn these companies become 
dependent from another company whose business is not transporting a 
single bit throughout the African region.

Isn't all that enough to stop those who blindly keep trying to make IP 
Leasing and usage out of the region something normal and that should be 
accepted by AfriNic ?

Fernando

On 07/07/2021 13:15, Noah wrote:

>

>

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

> <mailto: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 

> theuse of*/and not leasing or brokering IPv4's but rather ''*/use 

> of/*" meaning using the IPto provide internet related services in the 

> Afrinic region on somenetwork 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 useoutside the region should be solely in support of 

> connectivityback to the AFRINIC region*/

> *

> *

>

> Cheers,

> Noah

> *

> *

>

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