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

[Ian Baker]

Leo,
	(I'm sending this by mobile client, so please forgive the formatting 
eccentricity)

I see (and mostly agree) with your technicaI argument. 

However.

There are very real infrastructure differences and implications between the 
US & Africa.

>From analysis of WHOIS data, I see very real differences in allocations 
between (e.g.) US & EU companies.

Am I attempting to justify some particular policy or override?

No.

Just that - I believe - we all have a common goal in promoting Internet 
availabilty and usage, worldwide.

Apologies for the non-technical content, I've just that I've seen this 
techie vs. "other" stuff before.

I have no "agenda".

I've visited two N.African countries, but that's it. No axe to bear or 
drum/chest to beat..

Regards,

Ian Baker

________________ Reply Header ________________
Subject:	Re: [ppml] Policy Proposal 2003-15: IPv4 Allocation Policy for the 
Africa Portion of the ARIN Region
Author:	Leo Bicknell <bicknell at ufp.org>
Date:		23rd September 2003 11:16:46 am

In a message written on Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 08:36:12AM +0200, Darren 
wrote:
> 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.

I'm having a little bit of trouble with this line of argument.  I'd
like to address a few of the points raised.

- The playing field is level.

  Today the same policies apply to anyone asking for IP space.  It
  doesn't matter if your from Africa or Podunk Iowa, the process
  is applied equally and fairly.  This proposal will actually create
  an unlevel playing field that favors African ISP's.  For instance,
  would it be possible under this proposal for a US company to set
  up an African shell company, get IP space, and then use it in the
  US?  Making things like that possible would be very bad.

- African ISP's have taken steps to preserve space, which is part of
  the problem.

  I think it's great that African ISP's have figured out how to use
  NAT and other technologies to save space.  While I don't want to
  advocate "wasting" space my first question would be if you're
  going to renumber into your own portable block anyway why not get
  rid of the NAT, which will also improve your customers connectivity?
  There are, after all, applications that do not work through NAT.
  Would counting all those customers in a request justify enough
  IP's to qualify under the current procedures?

At the end of the day I'm sure there are more than a few ISP's in the 
US
and Canada that would love to have smaller allocations.  Indeed, 
you'll
see in the archives I've argued that we should make smaller 
allocations
available to everyone.  That said, this proposal leaves a bad taste in
my mouth because it tells the ISP in Africa that needs a /22 that 
they
are "special enough" to get it, but the same sized ISP in some 
other
country is not.

Put another way, I don't recall the lack of cheap bandwidth or 
the
pervasive use of NAT to have ever been factors in setting the 
allocation
size before, and that makes me wonder why we should start now.

If we're going to change the allocation size I believe strongly it
should be a global change, and not a local change that favors 
one
particular group.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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