Limited Out of Region Allocation of IPv4 Resources - AFPUB-2011-v4-003-draft-02

1.) Summary of the Problem Being Addressed by this Policy Proposal

With the IANA IPv4 global address pool already depleted, and policies already being discussed to allow for the transfer of space between the RIR's, the likelyhood that the rest of the world will turn to unused African allocations for more address space is growing on a daily basis. AfriNIC currently has a projected depletion date that is more than 12 months beyond that of ARIN/RIPE/APNIC, due to slower allocation rates. This leaves us with a fairly complex situation that raises many questions, including but not limited to, how long before foreign entities attempt to get access to African allocations, and are we infact in any position to stop this happening irrespective of policies passed.

2.) Summary of How this Proposal Addresses the Problem Above

This policy will help prevent the situation where foreign entities get access to African allocations through illicit means, while regulating the distribution of space and providing some benefit back to the African community. It will also allow for further revenue streams into AfriNIC, which can be used for the active promotion and development of IPv6. Further to this, the policy is designed to prevent a situation where AfriNIC is sitting with large blocks of unused IPv4 space long after such space is no longer useable due to the global migration towards IPv6.

3.) The Proposal

Upon the depletion of IPv4 resources within any of the RIPE/ APNIC/ LACNIC/ ARIN regions, AfriNIC will begin to allow foreign entities to take membership of AfriNIC and under such foreign membership obtain allocations of space, made available from a single /8 out of AfriNIC's IP space holding.

3.1) The foreign membership fee would charged as if the foreign member were an LIR + 100% increase in the LIR fee to cater for out of region membership.

3.2) Any foreign entity applying for space would have to comply with the standard rules with regards to usage plans.

3.3) No foreign entity may apply for more than a /16 worth of space at any one time - this is to avoid large scale grabs of space.

3.4)No more than a single /8 out of available AfriNIC space will be made available for this purpose

4.) Additional notes in regards to potential conflict with the soft landing policy:

Due to the fact that at current allocation rates this policy with come into force before the soft landing policy is triggered, there is no conflict with the current policy.

5.) Summary

While this policy may seem like a potential way to allow the rest of the world to pillage the African resources, it can be argued that the space will be used by foreign entities irrespective of the will of the African community. This policy merely allows the African community to, in some small way, benefit from the resources we have available.

6.) Revision History

# Revised introduction and split this into sections 1.0 and 2.0

# Modified policy wording to indicate foreign membership rather than sales of IP address space .

# Added conditions found in section 3.3

# Added section 4.0 to address concerns about soft landing policy.