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

[jlewis at lewis.org]

On Tue, 23 Sep 2003, Abdul Rehman Gani wrote:

> We tackle this on a case-by-case basis. Most small to medium companies
> or sohos internet requirements are not affected by NAT - therefore, to
> save IP space we use NAT.

Alot of our customers use NAT too, primarily because the average business 
connecting to the net has no need for all their windows boxes to be 
directly exposed to the internet.  We don't "do NAT" on our network for 
customers though...it's done on CPE.  Are you saying that some African 
ISPs are running portions of their network behind NAT that ISPs in the US 
generally would not?

What's the motivation behind "saving space"?  I don't really worry about 
running out of IP space (other than running out before I can get more) 
because I knew when I was running a small network in PA space, I could 
just ask for (and justify) more and get it.  As a larger network in PI 
space, the same applies...I just have to do alot more paperwork and go to 
ARIN rather than one of my upstreams.

Is there some lack of IP space among African providers?  I don't see why 
there would be.  If you use it, your providers should be able to get more.

As for economic differences, I'm sure we can find ISPs in rural parts of 
the US who have few choices (and no cheap ones) for transit providers.  Is 
there a reason the African ISPs should get special treatment?

And you can multihome without PI space.  It sucks being tied to one of 
your providers (using their space), but that's the way it is.  I have a 
client I helped multihome who currently has 3 transit providers.  He's got 
hundreds of IP devices at the main office and a large handful of remote 
offices connected to the main one via leased lines.  Except for a few 
public IP servers on his DMZ, the entire network is behind NAT.  He'd love 
to have PI space so he'd be more flexible and be able to "fire" transit 
providers at will...but the way he uses IPs, he currently doesn't come 
close to qualifying.  Why shouldn't this policy apply to him?
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Jon Lewis *jlewis at lewis.org*|  I route
 Senior Network Engineer     |  therefore you are
 Atlantic Net                |  
_________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________