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

[Darren]

> [...]
> Arguments for Policy Change
>
> The economies of Africa and those of other countries in the ARIN
> region (United States and Canada) are not of the same scale. The
> number of Internet users inside Africa is much fewer than in the
> other countries in the ARIN region. Whereas it may be reasonable to
> expect that the user numbers in North America support an ISP's
> ability to meet the current ARIN IPv4 criteria, it is not reasonable
> in Africa. Unable to meet the current criteria to obtain IPv4 address
> space from ARIN, and unable to obtain adequate address space from
> upstream providers; African ISPs must resort to solutions such as
> NAT, or sometimes are simply not able to provide services to
> customers due to the lack of IPv4 address space. Lack of adequate
> IPv4 address space may be slowing down the growth and development of
> the Internet in Africa.

It is obvious that Africa has no where near the resources of first world
countries and therefore should be judged on their own merits as it is
done in other industries. Whereas a smaller ISP in America can obtain
their own IP allocation, this is not possible in Africa. Only the very
rich companies, which are normally international companies, can obtain
the requirements, while the local companies cannot. This seems to be a
good proposal to try to level the playing fields.

Thanks,
Darren Harris
Managing Director
Intoweb Design
http://www.intoweb.co.za
Tel: (012) 348 5320
Fax: (012) 361 5576
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ppml at arin.net [mailto:owner-ppml at arin.net] On Behalf Of Alec
H. Peterson
Sent: 22 September 2003 10:55 PM
To: Member Services; ppml at arin.net
Subject: Re: [ppml] Policy Proposal 2003-15: IPv4 Allocation Policy for
the Africa Portion of the ARIN Region

--On Monday, September 22, 2003 16:47 -0400 Member Services 
<memsvcs at arin.net> wrote:

> [...]
> Arguments for Policy Change
>
> The economies of Africa and those of other countries in the ARIN
> region (United States and Canada) are not of the same scale. The
> number of Internet users inside Africa is much fewer than in the
> other countries in the ARIN region. Whereas it may be reasonable to
> expect that the user numbers in North America support an ISP's
> ability to meet the current ARIN IPv4 criteria, it is not reasonable
> in Africa. Unable to meet the current criteria to obtain IPv4 address
> space from ARIN, and unable to obtain adequate address space from
> upstream providers; African ISPs must resort to solutions such as
> NAT, or sometimes are simply not able to provide services to
> customers due to the lack of IPv4 address space. Lack of adequate
> IPv4 address space may be slowing down the growth and development of
> the Internet in Africa.

I am curious, why are African ISPs unable to obtain sufficient address 
space from their upstream providers?  Is the issue that such upstreams 
don't themselves qualify under ARIN's current policies?

Alec
ARIN AC Chair (but speaking only for himself)