[rpd] Unaddressed queries by AFRINIC during AGMM

[Fernando Frediani]

Unbelievable what an amount of absurd we have to cope with here 
sometimes. I guess that is s result of total lack of understanding of 
how things work and have always worked.

If a resource holder has a fair amount of **unused IPs** these addresses 
MUST be returned back to AfriNic or transferred to another member who 
has justification for it, period. There is no middle term for that nor 
philosophical or beautiful words to make something different or noble.
If any organization has to lease IPs in order to work it is already 
loosing because it could be a AfriNic member getting these same 
addresses directly from AfriNic from not a third part at a higher price.

IP addresses are meant to build and develop internet ecosystem not to 
stay with an organization which does not use them and or be rented to 
someone else at a higher cost.
It is also false information that all RIRs allow IP leasing.

Please improve your basis to discuss certain matters and don't spread 
false information.

On 08/07/2021 18:53, Mimi dy wrote:

>

>

> Hi Fernando,

>

> First, I find it important to remind you that the Internet is ONE. 

> Moreover, the African region will immensely benefit from this 

> activity, how? African ISPs/ network-holders can start leasing out 

> unused IPs, creating a whole connectivity ecosystem, which primarily 

> can help them generate more income, and more prominently, small scale 

> enterprises/ tech start-ups…etc., will also thrive through IP leasing 

> instead of dedicating a large portion of their capital to pay RIR 

> membership fees. Additionally, the organizations that have the 

> capacity to lease IP addresses to richer countries (i.e., Australia) 

> will definitely generate an important profit that will be used for the 

> striving of internet connectivity worldwide. If you do not see that as 

> an economic growth incentive and a comparative advantage, I suggest 

> you give it a second thought.

>

> As a matter of fact, all RIRs allow IP leasing, and inter-RIR 

> resources transfer, because there is no harm in liberating 

> number resources and allowing them to be globally transferrable. It is 

> important to realize that, in this day and age, the whole concept of 

> the Internet is rooted in openness, freedom and sharing, if you start 

> elaborating restrictive laws and regulations, the internet will be no 

> different from a communist government, which can lead to catastrophic 

> repercussions.

>

> To sum up, number resources are valuable assets and should be used in 

> a strategic and intelligent way, which can be beneficial for the whole 

> Internet, while of course maintaining its cooperative nature.

>

> Best,

>

>

> Le mer. 7 juil. 2021 à 23:51, Fernando Frediani <fhfrediani at gmail.com 

> <mailto:fhfrediani at gmail.com>> a écrit :

>

>     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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