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

[william at elan.net]

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Leo Bicknell wrote:

> > I have no problem if ARIN adopts this criteria as policy for other regions.
> 
> Then please support 2002-3.  There are three basic positions, people
> who don't want to move the prefix size, people who want to move it
> globally, and people who want to move it in Africa.  If the latter
> two combine efforts behind 2003-3 it will be more likely to pass,
> where as if they both continue both are likely to be rejected for
> lack of support.
I would like to highlight some differences between 2002-3 and 2002-15:

2002-3 is policy to alloe micro-assignments for ARIN region, that is 
assignments of ip space for use directly by organization (that 
organization can be ISP and use it for dialup, though as I uderstand
which may work for African ISPs). Also note that organizations that 
received ip space under 2002 would not become members of ARIN (at least as 
far as I understand proposal now, I would like to have ARIN staff respond 
here if this is not true and they would be members automaticly with 
micro-assignments).

2003-15 proposal would allow for smaller allocations for African region 
only, allowing those ip blocks to be used by ISPs not only for themselve 
but also allowing them to reassign portion of the block to their customers.
Since these would be allocations, my understanding is that African ISPs 
received ip blocks under that proposal would become members of ARIN

> I care because that will be the very next question raised.  I'll
> tell you right now that if 100 ISP's in Africa can get the allocation
> size moved in Africa, there will be 1000 ISP's in the US who will
> come back and say "what about me, I'm bigger then they are after
> all, so I should be able to multi-home too".  This policy change will
> have impact to other regions, and ARIN must consider that when it
> makes policy.
If we make sufficiently clear that policy is being adapted only to support 
establishment of RIR in that region, they would understand and not ask.

> > If you feel stongly that the US ISP in your example should be given IP
> > space.. well, then submit a proposal.
> 
> One is already there, 2002-3.  I support it.
See above on differences between 2002-3 (ip space provided to end-usersk, 
not ISPs) and 2003-15 (ip space for ISPs). 
 
> Now, that is a horse of a different color.  I had no idea allocations
> were so fragmented across the continent (I had simply never looked
> before), and now that I see RIPE, ARIN, and APNIC are all involved
> I am a strong supporter of getting an AfriNIC up and running to
> unify the process in that region.  They would of course be free to
> set their own policies -- however 
Fully setting up RIR is not as easy as that, especially in Africa. Its
not only policies and handling of requests but they need to have enough
members to support the RIR financially (and for example LACNIC is getting 
funding from two regional registries in Brazil and Mexico, none of that 
exists in Africa). There are also lots of other technical, administration, 
legal and other challenges before RIR could be ready. I do not think 
Afrinic is anywhere close to that position and will not be in the next 2 
years. Currently Afrinic is instead planning to setup a mini RIR within 
RIPE and handle registrations by their personnel but according to RIPE 
policies, but providing ip space in South Africa would still mean that 
policies of ARIN apply there.

What I do think is that we need a special procedures for policies to be 
adapted for emerging RIRs and these should be considered completely 
separate from other policies and should be done in more formal and global
manner. Something like that if the organization is recognized as emerging 
RIR by ASO and has established liason with ASO, then that liason can 
request certain policies for his/hers region and this request should then 
be evaluated by effected RIRs (making allocations in the region of 
emerging RIR) in a manner similar to global policy but evaluating its 
impact primarily only in how it effects the emerging RIR region. After 
policy is passed it becames policy that would only effect allocations or 
requests in that new region and only if the requests are handled through 
emerging RIR  i.e. somebody would make request to afrinic for example and
it would then pass along request to ARIN, but policy being applied to 
request would be policy specially passed for the emerging RIR. In that 
case basicly overtime emerging RIR is able to established its own policies
(which since its not established RIR are evaluated for their consistancy 
with some global policy document agreed by all rirs) and these policies 
only take effect for the new RIR region. After full RIR is established 
the policies ase migrated to the RIR and it can establish new policies
without having them approved by other RIRs.

> I still believe there should be
> generally the same policy worldwide.
That is what RIRs believe as well, since they tried to work out global
policy for ipv6. However there are enough individual differences between
regions that 100% same policies are not always appropriate so a more 
general framework for ip policies is better (as was provided before
by RFC2050), this should be worked out by ASO (or NRO or whatever else
is established as global organization for all RIRs) as global policy
documents.
  
-- 
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william at elan.net