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

[Tiaan van Aardt]

Hi,

William Stucke wrote:

> If I was an ISP in Africa and I got it from my
> state-legislated monopoly Telco, it would cost me ~$55,000 per
> month for the same dedicated T1 symmetrical bandwidth.

There is another key point to consider: That of lock-in.

Say you are an ISP in the SME business and you provide services to a whole
bunch of small companies with thin but dedicated lines. You get your
bandwidth from one of the large ISP's who rely on (or are themselves) the
monopoly carrier.

As soon as a second carrier is introduced, there is bound to be some shuffle
to the new provider. Likewise with a third carrier (we can dream, can't we).
In such a case would it not be unrealistic to expect said smaller ISP to ask
all its customers to renumber simply because it has changed its upstream to
save dollars?

Regards,
  -Tiaan.
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