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

[William Stucke]

Jon Lewis asked: -

> Why are the monopoly incumbent carriers so reluctant to assign additional
IPs when their customers have used up what they have?

I'm not a monopoly incumbent Telco, so I can't speak for them, but I can
take a guess: -

It's because they're MONOPOLY INCUMBENTS, and the mindset of this particular
animal simply doesn't understand the concept of competition.

1	They believe that giving an inch to their "customers" will allow the
latter to wriggle out of their sticky and blood-red claws.

2	Why shouldn't they be? They can do what they like ... and don't talk about
Regulators. There isn't a Government in Africa that I'm aware of that hasn't
made damned sure that their Regulator (if one even exists) is tightly bound
in terms of what it can and can't do. Telecommunications laws don't talk
about IP addresses, they just say "Thou shalt connect anywhere via the
incumbent, ONLY"

A number of very important concepts are diametrically opposed when
considering circuit-switched type telecommunications versus packet-switched
type IP networks. Indeed the mindsets are so different that many people have
difficulty grasping that a difference even exists .. but this is rather off
topic. The Telecommunications laws are all written based on the former, and
have real trouble dealing with the latter.

The number of times that I've heard Telkom SA people equate the terms "core
network / router" and "Telephone Exchange"  ...

Regards,

William Stucke
ZAnet Internet Services (Pty) Ltd
+27 11 465 0700
William at zanet.co.za

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ppml at arin.net [mailto:owner-ppml at arin.net]On Behalf Of
jlewis at lewis.org
Sent: 30 September 2003 23:34
To: Bill Woodcock
Cc: William Stucke; ppml at arin.net
Subject: RE: [ppml] Policy Proposal 2003-15: IPv4 Allocation Policy for
the Africa Portion of the ARIN Region


On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Bill Woodcock wrote:

>       On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, William Stucke wrote:
>     > In most of the 53 countries in Africa, ISPs don't
>     > have a choice of from whom they get service, nor how it is carried.
They are
>     > obliged to use the monopoly incumbent, or go to jail. Some of those
monopoly
>     > Telcos are VERY reluctant to assign IP addresses - e.g. Kenya.
>
> This is an important factor for Americans to consider carefully before
> rushing to judgement in this issue.  One of the _really fundamental_
> assumptions Americans make, upon which the whole policy framework in
> America is founded, is that customers can vote with their feet.  That is,
> if a customer doesn't like the policies of an upstream provider
> ($500/month for an additional IP address, or whatever), they can simply
> switch providers, and give their money to someone more reasonable.  That
> logic is simply not applicable in the African regulatory context, and that
> fundamental difference informs this whole debate.  So, American ARIN

Why are the monopoly incumbent carriers so reluctant to assign additional
IPs when their customers have used up what they have?  If it's simply to
extort more money from them, is there any reason to believe giving them
portable space is going to make a difference?  "oh...you want to do BGP
now?...well, that's going to be an extra $X/month per IP you announce to
us."

Now this sounds like a[n attempted] technical solution to a non-technical
problem.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Jon Lewis *jlewis at lewis.org*|  I route
 Senior Network Engineer     |  therefore you are
 Atlantic Net                |
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