An update on the AfriNIC situation

Tue Aug 31 22:40:37 UTC 2021

> On Aug 31, 2021, at 13:53 , Jon Lewis <jlewis at lewis.org> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 31 Aug 2021, Sabri Berisha wrote:
> 
>> ----- On Aug 31, 2021, at 8:40 AM, Jon Lewis jlewis at lewis.org wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> [ I'm not affiliated with CI in any way, just playing the Devil's Advocate ]
>> 
>>> "5.4.6.2 AFRINIC resources are for AFRINIC service region and any use
>>> outside the region should be solely in support of connectivity back to the
>>> AFRINIC region."
>> 
>>> AfriNIC's policy is not at all vague on the matter that their resources
>>> are to be used in or to support connectivity in the AFRINIC region.
>> 
>> In all fairness, that is as ambiguous as it can be. What constitutes "support
>> of connectivity back to the AfriNIC region"?
>> 
>> It's easy to argue that CI is in full compliance with that since their
>> assignment supports connectivity between users in Africa and their clients'
>> services. In that case, only IP space used outside of Africa not advertised
>> to the internet would be in violation.
> 
> I think any reasonable person would argue "in support of connectivity back to the AFRINIC region." would cover things like providing IP addressing for a network that extends into the AfriNIC region, and not to leasing IPs to random orgs outside the AfriNIC region for use on networks that don't extend into the AfriNIC region.
> 
> Regardless, I gather from other messages, the issue is CI claims this is a misapplication of policy (or AfriNIC f'd up writing the CPM) and CI claims 5.4.6.2 doesn't apply because their allocations pre-date AfriNIC being down to their final /8.
> 
> It sure looks to me like this was a major oversight, as 5.4.6.2 doesn't appear to have anything to do with soft landing, but is under the soft landing section of the CPM (which says "This section describes how AFRINIC shall assign...resources during the "Exhaustion Phase"...."

I was present for many of the debates over the soft landing policy. 5.4.6.2 is language that came from that policy proposal and was quite clearly and deliberately intended to be part of that policy and be applied once exhaustion phase 1 was activated. It is not an oversight and it is not an error that it is part of that policy.

One might argue that the lack of a more general policy regarding out of region use was an oversight once upon a time, but an effort was made by one community member to get such a policy adopted. There was much vocal opposition and the policy did not achieve consensus in the community. It was ultimately withdrawn by the author per the AFRINIC PDP.

Owen