<div dir="ltr">Hello all,<div><br></div><div>I would like to clarify that the bylaws are a document explicitly drafted to serve AFRINIC LTD, which is holding corporate status. It is completely irrelevant to resource management. To put it differently, the bylaws itself is specific about being the "Constitution of AFRINIC" as an entity, i.e. it is not the constitution of the community, and certainly not the rulebook of internet resources management in Africa. </div><div><div><br></div><div>Actually, AFRINIC as an RIR assumes the responsibility of resource distribution, nonetheless, it cannot stipulate how those numbers shall be operated. From the financial perspective, AFRINIC simply is unable to afford it. Legally speaking, AFRINIC does not represent a government body, nor holding the legitimate power to impose a certain mode of resource management. That being said, using the bylaws as a basis is senseless. </div><div><br></div><div>To paint you a clearer picture, this scenario resembles the fact that someone is using Greenpeace's Constitution and telling people they are wrong because it is not something that is integrated into the Greenpeace Constitution. However, sincerely, do NGOs like the Greenpeace Constitution, or does AFRINIC detain the power to intervene in such matters? </div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Le mer. 7 juil. 2021 à 17:19, Noah <<a href="mailto:noah@neo.co.tz">noah@neo.co.tz</a>> a écrit :<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jul 6, 2021 at 1:06 AM Anthony Ubah <<a href="mailto:ubah.tonyiyke@gmail.com" target="_blank">ubah.tonyiyke@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Hi Noah,<br><br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Hi Oga Ubah,</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">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.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>RIR membership fees are annual and AFRINIC today has close to 200 resource members across the region both large and small.</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">AFRINIC Bylaws Section 3.4) Sections i. and iii. Below talk about <b>enabling communication to assist in the development of the Internet in Africa and promote responsible management of number resources</b> and not leasing/brokering.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:15px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue""><i>i. to provide the service of <b>allocating and registering Internet resources for the purposes of enabling communications </b>via open system network protocols and to assist in the development and growth of the Internet in the African region;</i></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:15px"><i><br></i></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue""><i>iii. to promote <b>responsible management of Internet resources</b> throughout the <b>African region</b>, as well as the <b>responsible development and operation of Internet infrastructures; </b></i><span><b><i> </i> </b></span></p></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"> I feel total reliance on network providers/carriers also limits flexibility</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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. <br></div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><br>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.</div></div></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>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.<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Ooooh well.... last I checked ... AFRINIC is provider Independent and has alway been.<br></div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><br>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.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>There is no language in the CPM that indicates that PI assignments are also called <b>leasing</b>. Please point me to such a language.</div><div><br></div><div>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.). </div><div><br></div><div>This short term assignment as far I know is done for free and AFRINIC does not charge the temporary requesters any fees.</div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div> </div><div>AFRINIC as a non profit organisation should not place itself in direct competition with its members.<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Which members is AFRINIC competing with exactly? </div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>Resource owners are restricted from leasing,</div></div></blockquote><div> </div><div>There is no such thing as a Resource owner. What there is, is Membership.</div><div><br></div>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue""><b>Bylaws section 6.1 subsection i.) talks of Membership as below.</b></p><p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue""><b> </b></p><p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">6) <b>MEMBERSHIP</b></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">6.1) Subject to the other provisions of this Article, membership shall be open to:</p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:15px"><br></p>
<div><i><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px">i. any Person who is geographically based within, and<font color="#990000"> <b>providing services in the African region</b></font>, and who is engaged in the </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px;text-decoration-line:underline"><b><font color="#cc0000">use of</font></b></span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px"><font color="#cc0000">,</font> or <b><font color="#990000">business of providing, open system protocol network services;</font></b></span></i></div><div> </div><div>So to break down the above for you, the language talks of <i><b>engaged in the<span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px"> </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px">use of</span></b></i><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px"> and not leasing or brokering IPv4's but rather ''<b><i>use of</i></b>" meaning using the IP</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px"> </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px">to provide internet related services in the Afrinic region on some</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px"> </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px">network or system infrastructure.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px"><br></span></div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>while the registry can lease out space as described in the policy, placing AFRINIC in a very awkward situation.<br clear="all"></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>AFRINIC does not lease, it allocates to LIR's and assigns members who seek PI INR's....</div><div><br></div>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">CPM Section <span style="color:rgb(32,90,115)">5.4.6.2</span> reads as below and still talks of <font color="#cc0000"><b>use</b></font></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:13px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:15px"><br></p>
<div><i><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px;color:rgb(32,90,115)">5.4.6.2</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px"> <font color="#990000"><b>AFRINIC resources are for</b> </font><b><font color="#990000">AFRINIC service region</font></b> <b>and</b> </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px"><b><font color="#000000">any </font><font color="#ff0000">use</font><font color="#990000" style="text-decoration-line:underline"> </font><font color="#990000">outside the region should be solely in support of </font><font color="#000000">connectivity</font><font color="#990000"> back to the </font><font color="#000000">AFRINIC region</font></b></span></i></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px;text-decoration-line:underline"><b><br></b></span></div><div><br></div><div><font face="Helvetica Neue">Cheers,</font></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px">Noah</span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue";font-size:13px;text-decoration-line:underline"><b><br></b></span></div></div></div>
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