An update on the AfriNIC situation

Owen DeLong owen at delong.com
Tue Aug 31 01:06:47 UTC 2021



> On Aug 30, 2021, at 18:00 , Rubens Kuhl <rubensk at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> AFRINIC approves IPv4 for the purpose of leasing every day. It’s what ISPs do. It’s the definition of an LIR.
>> 
>> Yes, most LIRs are also in the connectivity business and provide addresses (mostly/exclusively) to customers of their connectivity services.
> 
> Which is why CI informed AfriNIC in their request that they were going
> to have no network and provide connectivity-less services to CI
> customers, right ?
> 
>> However, there’s no such policy requirement in the AFRINIC governing documents.
> 
> All RIRs were subject to RFC 2050, now RFC 7020, which states:
> "1)  Allocation Pool Management: Due to the fixed lengths of IP
>       addresses and AS numbers, the pools from which these resources
>       are allocated are finite.  As such, allocations must be made in
>       accordance with the operational needs of those running the
>       networks that make use of these number resources and by taking
>       into consideration pool limitations at the time of allocation."
> 
> If there is no network, there is no use of such number resources.
> 

This is a clear misreading of RFC-2050 and later RFC-7020.

No RIR is subject to them. They are purported to, I quote:

   This document provides information about the current Internet Numbers
   Registry System used in the distribution of globally unique Internet
   Protocol (IP) address space and autonomous system (AS) numbers.

   This document also provides information about the processes for
   further evolution of the Internet Numbers Registry System.

   This document replaces RFC 2050 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2050>.

   This document does not propose any changes to the current Internet
   Numbers Registry System.  Rather, it documents the Internet Numbers
   Registry System as it works today.

As such, errata notwithstanding (for example, it misleadingly claims that multi-regional entities interact
with multiple RIRs which is only sometimes true), RFC-7020 can’t be cited as imposing any rules
upon RIRs and any case where its content differs from current reality represents errata in the RFC and
not misconduct by the RIR or its members or customers.

Owen

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