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

[Gregory Massel]

> The funny thing is that Afrinic does exist! It even has a website at
> http://www.afrinic.org and it has had several meetings over the past
> couple of years including one last week in South Africa at
> Internet Week.
>
> So, why haven't the several .ZA ISPs on this list said anything
> about this?

I have!!! Repeatedly!

> Why didn't the policy proposal indicate whether or not Afrinic
> had been consulted or whether the Afrinic Board of Trustees
> supports the proposal?

At iWeek there were AfriNIC board members involved in the discussion leading 
up to the 2003-15 proposal (and the discussions were unanimously supported 
without a single person present against making the proposal).

I will ask the AfriNIC board to send a letter officially supporting 2003-15.

> I'm beginning to wonder if we are being dragged into some
> internal Afrinic politics here. The transition plan for
> Afrinic is that in February 2004, i.e. 3 months after the
> ARIN meeting, they plan to process IP requests themselves
> using ARIN and/or RIPE only for a 2nd opinion.

There is no politics involved here at all. I'm sure any one of the AfriNIC 
representatives on this list can confirm this. 

> I'm beginning to think that the best thing ARIN can
> do to support African ISPs is to dump them and let
> RIPE and Afrinic pick up the pieces. From the research
> I've done it sounds like Afrinic is well progressed
> in its functioning and has a closer working relationship
> with RIPE than with ARIN.

This is a completely unfair suggestion. Keep in mind that there are parts of 
Africa served by ARIN and parts served by RIPE (even a few served by APnic). 

AfriNIC has been working closely with a number of registries, include ARIN, 
RIPE and LACNIC. 

There are a few key reasons for the close relationship with RIPE. 
- RIPE have been kind enough to offer extensive training to the AfriNIC 
hostmasters. 
- It is significantly cheaper and faster to travel from Africa to Europe and 
back than to North America and back. (I'm presently organising air-tickets to 
attend to ARIN XII meeting and most of my options involve flying via a 
European hub city.)
- Time zones in Africa are similar to Europe
- RIPE works in both French and English, a key requirement for AfriNIC

> Is there anyone on the list who knows more about Afrinic
> than I do who could confirm, or deny, my assumptions?

Yes. I deny them. They are assumptions and nothing more than that. 

It has taken many years to get the African continent to sing from the same 
hymn book on this issue, and I can proudly say that we stand united.

Regards
Greg