[ppml] Policy Proposal 2003-15: IPv4 Allocation Policy for the Africa Portion of the ARIN Region

[Lee Howard]

On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Bill Woodcock wrote:

> Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 03:25:19 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net>
> To: Mury <mury at goldengate.net>
> Cc: William Stucke <William at zanet.co.za>, ppml at arin.net
> Subject: RE: [ppml] Policy Proposal 2003-15: IPv4 Allocation Policy for
>     the Africa Portion of the ARIN Region
> 
>       On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Mury wrote:
>     > If the problem lies with these monopolies not giving IPs to their
>     > downstream customers, why are they going to cooperate and route IPs
>     > allocated from ARIN?
> 
> Again, nobody asks them to cooperate.  ISPs simply tunnel through them,
> and announce the prefixes to transit providers in other locations where
> market forces make them more cooperative.
> 
>                                 -Bill

I'm still confused, trying to draw a network diagram and see if I 
understand the situation.  

Let's say I'm Joe Bob's ISP, Bait and Tackle in Botswana. 

I have 1000 dial-up ports, but my tyrannical upstream (who I'm legally
obligated to use because it's a government/monopoly PTT) won't give me
more than a /26 because I might be competing with them.  Or because
they don't understand that my plan to multihome means I justify a /24,
and that they can apply to ARIN for more space when they've used 80%.

Cleverly using traceroute, I find that BotswanaNet.bw has connectivity
through MegaISP.za, so I call up MegaISP.za and explain my plight.  
They sympathize with me and the money I offer them, and they allocate
me a /22 so I can now number all of my equipment, and we set up a GRE
tunnel (to an address from my .bw IP space) so I can route that /22.  
However, I still can't multihome, because AnotherISP.za is not going
to accept MegaISP.za address space coming from me. 

To compound the problem, either A) I can't afford a leased line to
either big ISP or B) Botswana law prohibits me from using another
provider.  I may actually be breaking the law by using non-Botswanan
address space.

This is the most common configuration in sub-equatorial Africa?

I have no position on this policy proposal--I don't understand the
need for it well enough to judge.  I am grateful for the participation
of the African community, and I hope we'll continue to see you on
other policy discussions.


Lee



*  Sorry for picking on Botswana and South Africa in particular.