0:00:00 Seun Ojedeji: Two weeks ago. It was sent in two weeks ago, and that is the one we are actually discussing because it was sent minimum of one week before the public policy meeting, and that got it on the agenda. So I will, without wasting time, call on Douglas to come and... Oh, just a minute. 0:00:27 Christian Bope: Sorry Chair. I have just a question because before the break, the discussion was... There was one policy which was updated, and other was not updated. Which one are we discussing now? 0:00:41 Seun Ojedeji: We are discussing the one that was updated. 0:00:43 Christian Bope: Okay, thank you. 0:00:44 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. [pause] 0:00:56 Douglas Onyango: My name is Douglas Onyango. Chair, I wanted to make a procedure comment before I start doing my presentation. Do I have to go down to the right? [pause] 0:01:13 Douglas Onyango: Okay. My comment is in regard with how we are handling the PDP right now, the discussions. It is my understanding that's to gauge consensus on the policy we will have to require a co-Chair and I'm aware that we have only one at the front. My question is, are we going to proceed without another co-Chair at this point, or are we going to try and get a co-Chair so that we can be able to finish the discussions? 0:01:50 Seun Ojedeji: Okay, thank you Douglas. I'm not sure where it's indicated that it has to be the two co-chairs that observe consensus. I think one of the essence of having a co-Chair is that there's always someone to chair the meeting, and that is... So, since we have a co-Chair right now, that is chairing the meeting, I think if we could actually observe consensus. Thank you. Andrew? [pause] 0:02:36 Andrew Alston: Chair, I think that Douglas raises a very valid question. I think that policies such as this end up placing restrictions of allowances on this entire community, and I believe that consensus is gauged by two chairs for the avoidance of any doubt. I think that without that, there is potential... And I'm not implying in any way that you are biased. Please do not take it that way. I am saying that there is a perception that consensus may not be fairly gauged without at least two people confirming that. I think that the question should be what the views on this floor are, and I think that we should ask if there is consensus to proceed with only one chair, or if we should actually bring in via a vote on this floor a second co-Chair for the purposes of this meeting, and I believe that the community should be the gauge of that, rather than the chair of the PDP. 0:03:52 Seun Ojedeji: Please go ahead Mark. 0:03:53 Mark Elkins: Hi. This is Mark Elkins, member of the AFRINIC board. Seun, can I suggest that perhaps we look to one of the past chairs that might be in this room? Perhaps Alan Barrett or Paulos Nyirenda to assist you so that we can get over this speed bump please? If not, anyone else that is familiar with the notion of what PDP is all about. Perhaps even this gentleman in front of me from the US. No problem. Temporary basis only. 0:04:30 Seun Ojedeji: Sunday? [pause] 0:04:41 Sunday Folayan: Sunday, speaking in my personal capacity. I just wanted to observe that per the process, and has been said, there should be two co-chairs. It's not one, and a vice when he's not around. It's co-chairs, and by the process they should put heads together and determine whether there's rough consensus. Since we're in a unique situation that Adam is not available, my suggestion as Mark said, is that the co-Chair should look in the hall, appoint someone with sufficient experience in an interim capacity to make sure that the process is online, and then whatever needs to be done can be done later on. But I think we're in a unique situation and we should deal with it as being unique. 0:05:45 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. 0:05:50 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah? Christian, please. 0:05:52 Christian Bope: Yeah. Just concerning Sunday's comment. I have a concern about that because we know that there will be an election of the PDP co-Chair. And if now we ask the PDP co-Chair who will be ____ to the election just this afternoon to propose another PDP co-Chair, I think it's not good. We will... First of all what we should do is to do an election for the PDP co-Chair as per the by-law, and after that we will decide which to do next. Not to put to do what we're applying to do now. Thank you. [background conversation] 0:06:42 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah, Andrew. 0:06:44 Andrew Alston: Chair, I would have no objections in principle to moving the election forward so that we have two Chairs. I would also have no objection to using one of the past co-Chairs provided that there is consensus in this room. This is a bottom-up community. If this community feels that somebody from this floor can adequately act as co-Chair, then that is the community's decision, let the community's voice be heard. 0:07:16 Seun Ojedeji: Okay. Thank you very much. All the views have been well taken and noted. I just think it's very important to clarify something. This is not the first situation. This is not the first time we're having a set-up like this. I think it was in Côte d'Ivoire where I actually happened to be the one that chaired that session, and we had consensus. We observed consensus, and the call... There were no calls then. There was no such call then. While I recognise that the views are important, and perhaps they are said with good intentions, I have serious concerns on my personal self. I think it's good, we can proceed to do that, but I'm just concerned that it has to come up even though we have actually had consensus by co-Chair in the past. Having said that, I will go by asking Ernest, perhaps he has a comment. 0:08:45 Ernest Byaruhanga: Yeah, just reading this text from the PDP, perhaps to enlighten everybody. That's Article five, the last paragraph, it says, "If the working group Chair is unable to serve his or her full term, the working group may select a replacement to serve the remainder of the term." Now, this is already on plan to do it this evening. We are already planning to have a little session, 10, 15 minutes to call for a representative that will complete the term of Adam Nelson. Now the next, "If the working groups Chairs are unable to attend the public policy meetings the working group shall nominate a Chair for the session. Anyone present at the meeting whether in person or by remote participation may participate in the selection process for a temporary Chair." So I believe to move forward, the working group knows everybody here, you can please nominate who you think can be a Chair for the session. Perhaps those who can volunteer, who wish to volunteer to Chair and are familiar with the PDP, please feel free to come forward, volunteer yourselves and we get the sessions going. Thank you. 0:10:08 Andrew Alston: Chair, I would like to nominate Mark Elkins. [pause] 0:10:49 Ernest Byaruhanga: Okay. Apologies for that. Christian you have a... 0:10:57 Christian Bope: Yeah. 0:10:58 Ernest Byaruhanga: Okay. Can you please make it quick Christian. Thank you. 0:11:01 Christian Bope: Don't worry. Just I want to tell the members of the community, I've been part of this community for almost more than five years and I've noticed one energetic gentleman who I believe he can help us to work on Policy Development Process. And I put my faith on that man. And as people in this community have some trust on me, I think I should trust that man. I would like to nominate Barry as a candidate for the PDP co-Chair. Thank you. [background conversation] 0:11:47 Nii Quaynor: Quick clarification. There are two Barrys. Which of the Barrys? [background conversation] 0:12:07 Christian Bope: In order to avoid any confusion, I will like to introduce myself, my candidate. [applause] 0:12:16 Barry Apudo: I accept the nomination. 0:12:19 Ernest Byaruhanga: Okay, thank you Barry for accepting the nomination. Do we have any other nominees or... 0:12:27 Haitham El Nakhal, I am speaking with my personal capacity, I nominate Mr. Mark Elkins. [applause] 0:12:38 Ernest Byaruhanga: Okay, thank you Haitham. So Haitham nominates Mark Elkin, so we have two nominees so far. We have Barry Macharia from TESPOK and Mark Elkins who is a board member.... I think that's a conflict because if somebody is on the Board I believe, there might be a bit of a conflict, that person might be a conflict. I am not sure what the Board thinks about that. But perhaps, okay... 0:13:13 Andrew Alston: I point out that Mark Elkins is an alternate Director and while he does sit on the Board, unless his primary is available, he does not have a vote and therefore, I do not see a conflict. 0:13:27 Ernest Byaruhanga: Okay, but don't we want to consider the fact that his election is coming up tomorrow, and what if he is elected we'll have to repeat the process. 0:13:38 Andrew Alston: No, I don't think so because we are bringing someone in for a temporary period, for the period of this PDP meeting. The election will still go ahead this evening. We are asking for someone for today. 0:13:49 Ernest Byaruhanga: Actually not, we have decided, Andrew, to replace... To get somebody to complete Adam's term, so that's what we are doing now and I think with that in mind that might get Mark conflicted. So, we still have Barry, if Mark understands that, and perhaps Owen you go first, and then Sunday. 0:14:13 Owen De Long: Owen DeLong, ARIN Advisory Council. I am speaking only as a sort of member of the community. I believe that it is a conflict of interest because even as an alternate, it may be that the decisions made here today come before the Board for ratification and Mark is called to vote if his primary is not available, and that reduces the checks and balances, so it is therefore in my opinion a conflict of interest regardless. 0:14:40 Ernest Byaruhanga: Thank you Owen, and I think that's clear enough. Thank you. Sunday, please? 0:14:46 Sunday Folayan: Okay. Whatever the intention is, whether it is for today alone or to the end of the term, Mark Elkins is conflicted and should not do it. The principle is not right. There are enough competent brilliant people in this hall. I also totally agree with Owen that we might say he is alternate, but by the time it gets there for ratification his heart has changed. Let's not just play into territory we don't have to play into. Thank you. 0:15:22 Andrew Alston: I withdraw my comments based on the fact that we are looking for someone for a longer period, so I withdraw my comments about the alternate and I am quite happy to accept that in that case Mark is conflicted, and I'm happy with Barry's nomination and I will actually second it. 0:15:38 Ernest Byaruhanga: Thank you. 0:15:41 Abdul Munim Ghalila: Abdul Munim Ghalila, from Egypt. From my best of capacity I nominate Mark Allens for... 0:15:48 Seun Ojedeji: I am sorry, you nominate who? 0:15:50 Abdul Munim Ghalila: Mark Allens. 0:15:51 Ernest Byaruhanga: Mark Elkins. 0:15:51 Abdul Munim Ghalila: Mark Elkins, yes. 0:15:53 Seun Ojedeji: Mark Elkins is conflicted and cannot be nominated. Thank you. Yeah, Christian? 0:16:01 Christian Bope: Just I think we conclude that Mark Elkins is in a conflict of interest and I don't want to say more on that, just to thank Mark Elkins for accepting to withdraw his candidate, thank you. 0:16:17 Ernest Byaruhanga: Okay. Mustapha? [French] 0:16:20 Mustapha: I think that... I am Mustapha from Tunisia. I think we need to wait for the election of the co-Chair who is going to have this two terms, two year's term, and we are invited to vote to him and then we'll see for the second person who's going to complete or replace the person who withdrew. So we need to make, to proceed for the first election. I have a proposal in this way. If we have two candidates for the position where we have published their CV, for the position of a co-Chair, why don't we take the one who was elected for the term of two years, as for the second we'll see if the person accepts this position so this will be completed. So of course so we need to see the two CVs for this purpose. 0:17:32 Ernest Byaruhanga: I believe that your suggestion would have held if this happened after the scheduled election in the afternoon. However, it has happened before and we have a situation where we need a replacement of the... Of somebody to complete the term of the co-Chair that resigned. And if it has to be done now then I don't think we can determine who would have won the election in the afternoon and who would be in a position to complete the term of the guy that resigned. So, in my mind I think the exercise still needs to go on, and for the interest of getting the policy discussions going on with the two co-Chairs. Thank you. 0:18:15 Nii Quaynor: Mr. Chairman, I just think that being such a good community based organisation, we should be trying to reach out and getting newer people to be participating as often as we can, as long as they meet the qualification requirements. In that regard, I really think Barry is a reasonable option and we should simply encourage him to take the role and give it a good try and move on. If we keep on continuously inviting our own selves all the time, the community part which is a requirement of an RIR will become stale. And so, I am very keen to have a new face, a new party, to also begin to learn how to become a good co-Chair and eventually we'll have many people able to do that job. Thank you. 0:19:13 Ernest Byaruhanga: Okay. Thank you Dr. Nii. So, Alan, you have a comment? 0:19:21 Alan Barrett: Yeah, good morning everybody. The process says that we have two co-Chairs, but I see nothing in the document that says that they must both be present at any meeting, and we do have precedent that in the past, we have had meetings such as this where only of the co-Chairs was present. So, I don't think that we need to worry too much about that in terms of the procedure. However, in therms of the will of the community, if the people in this room want us to have two co-Chairs we should listen to them, and so we need to make a decision whether to appoint a co-Chair only for this meeting, or whether to appoint a coach to serve at the remainder of Adam's term. Actually, we need to do that in any case. 0:20:14 Andrew Alston: One of our co-Chairs has resigned, we must appoint a replacement to serve out the end of his term. The decision we have to make is whether to do that right now, or whether to wait until after the election which is later this afternoon. I don't really care what decision is made but this meeting I think should make that decision. Then based on the results of that decision, we might or might not have to appoint a co-Chair for this meeting. That is my interpretation of both precedence and the rules as they're written. 0:20:48 Ernest Byaruhanga: Okay, thanks Alan. I believe at this point, given Alan's input, we... I think at the start of the session we planned agreed here with Seun and I think with a bit of your input Alan that we actually go ahead and select someone to complete Adam's term. If anybody feels otherwise, we would like to see that. But otherwise I think let's go ahead and ask Barry to maybe come up and... You never know, Barry you need to convince the community that you are the guy to replace Adam and complete his term. Maybe you can't even talk, you never know. [laughter] So, Barry, you have a minute. 0:21:48 Barry Macharia: Yes. 0:21:49 Ernest Byaruhanga: Sell yourself to the community. Tell them what you can do and how well you know the PDP. 0:21:57 Barry Macharia: Okay, my name is Barry Apudo Macharia. I work at TESPOK. I handle Kenya Internet Exchange Point. I've been involved in this community since 2011. I believe I'm able to do this job given the opportunity. I've been nominated, accept the nomination and since I know most of you, I'm ready to work with everyone that is here. [applause] 0:22:26 Ernest Byaruhanga: Thank you very much Barry. We'll do a quick simple poll, those who think that Barry is capable and should complete Adam's term, can I see all your hands up. Thank you. We'll not count but we have roughly the picture. Those who think Barry is not capable to complete Adam's term, and should not be put in place to complete Adam's term, let me see you hands up. Thank you. [applause] 0:23:02 Ernest Byaruhanga: Barry! 0:23:06 Barry Macharia: Thank you very much. 0:23:07 Ernest Byaruhanga: Barry, can you please come to the floor and co-Chair the session with Seun. Thank you very much. 0:23:11 Barry Macharia: Thank you. 0:23:17 Seun Ojedeji: May I please call Douglas to come ahead and continue with the rest of the program, thank you. 0:23:26 Douglas Onyango: Thanks a lot. The proposal I'm going to present, I've presented on before in our previous meeting, and I'll be the first to confess, I haven't done as much work as was supposed to be done in modifying and updating this policy proposal. I also would like to point out that since my arrival here and after some deliberation with some members of the community and staff, I again feel there's a few more modifications, probably some fundamental to the core of this proposal that will have to be incorporated. Probably we'll be seeing them after this meeting. But suffice it, I've been asked by the Chairs to nonetheless proceed with discussing the policy and the proposal as it is, as we see it right now if for no other purpose than just to elicit feedback and deliberation. 0:24:30 Douglas Onyango: For those of you who are not familiar with this proposal, what it seeks to do, or the problem at the heart of the policy is the fact that AFRINIC staff, usually when they will get a request for allocation or assignment and the requester happens to say, "I would like to... " or whether it's implicitly or explicitly state they need to use some of this address space out of region, it becomes a little bit complicated for the staff to know how to treat this particular request. And the reason is simple, we do not have any policies within AFRINIC that would state whether this is accepted or not accepted. As a result, the staff usually will not know and they will probably come up with some response but then you... It can't be ____ addressed to one particular proposal. 0:25:28 Douglas Onyango: So, this particular proposal wishes to, first of all, try and go ahead to make it agreeable. [background conversation] 0:26:48 Douglas Onyango: Basically at the heart of the policy, first and foremost, is to allow people who request for IP address and other resources from AFRINIC should be granted the resources that they request for if the request is premised on the fact that they will be using some of those resources outside of the region. Of course, this is an entitlement that is given. This is something that we are affording our members do and by extension that means we will need to put certain parameters around this permission that we've granted. One of those, first and foremost, is to allow that... To maintain a certain decent ratio between a space that is used out of the region, vis-a-vis that amount of space that used inside the region. So it's that address space that we are supposed to be administering mostly caters to the needs of the members within the region. 0:27:55 Douglas Onyango: So, to make this possible, I proposed to allow a maximum of 40% of use of space outside of the region. That means we should have more space being used in the region more than we do have space being used outside of the region. Then of course... Do we have the... Okay. There's a few other clauses. Let's just go ahead to define how the policy will be implemented. First and foremost is that we currently have certain acceptable use policies within AFRINIC. That means if you ask for IPv4, there's a number of, within RSA and in other documents, there is that agreement between you and AFRINIC that you have requested address space for purpose X and you will use it only for that purpose. 0:29:02 Douglas Onyango: This policy just goes ahead to, without restating the obvious, just strengthen the point that, okay, what we want to do we just would like to add this to the number of policies or the number of agreements that you have already signed with AFRINIC to make sure you use address space for exactly the purposes for which you got them. And if at any point in time you decide to use it for any purpose other than what it was originally intended for, that you agree that that would be a breach and of course there will be steps that could be taken either under the RSA or any other agreement. Of course the last part is just pointing out how... For what amount of time the policy will be in place. Probably that's really all there is in the policy proposal. I'm going to hand it back to the Chairs, so I don't know if we take questions or... [background conversation] 0:30:08 Douglas Onyango: Okay. The Chair is saying we will take questions now. 0:30:13 Seun Ojedeji: Okay, thank you very much, Douglas. Before we start receiving comments, let me use this opportunity to welcome my colleague, the new co-Chair. I'm looking forward to a good working relationship with him. I would also like to thank Adam who's actually served before Barry, and we thank him, and we also wish him well in his new role and we hope that he will still keep in touch with the community. Thank you. So, Andrew, I think you were the first. You can turn the mic. 0:30:56 Andrew Alston: Yeah, Andrew from Liquid Telecom. I vigorously opposed this policy the first time, I vigorously oppose this policy a second time. Okay, let me run some things by you. First of all, the 40% number was questioned last time as to where it came from and there was no clear answer, it was kind of an arbitrary number. If we're gonna put a number on things like this, let's get a proper number. Secondly, I believe that as an African organization, and I speak now on behalf of Liquid Telecommunication, if I apply for space and I am expanding my network, the result of that is more revenue coming into this continent, which serves this continent. I should be free to expand my network to any point in the world that I wish using that space. The alternative that you are proposing if I get to a position, where I need to get more space because I'm in violation of this policy, is that for every six /16 that I would have to get, I would have to go to the secondary market. 0:32:13 Andrew Alston: The secondary market would cost me $800,000 per /16 at current. That is putting an undue burden on African companies that are growing outwards. Yes, at this point, I am announcing a /14 on the African continent... Well, approximately a /14. It is all used here. So, at the moment not affecting me. But what if when it does? What happens when I want to draw my company to that point? Are you really telling me that you are going to put that kind of financial burden on an African company and hurt the economies as a result? I'm sorry, that's not acceptable. I get IPs from AFRINIC because I am an African-domiciled organization, and as an African-domiciled organization I should be entitled to those IPs and able to use them wherever I please, "Hands off my network," in the words of Randy Bush. 0:33:12 Seun Ojedeji: Andrew, thank you very much for the comment. I think we need to observe some ethics in our discussion. I appreciate your view, but I think you could just express them. You don't need to be so emotional about it. But I understand how passionate you are about this and why you said the way you said it while you could have also said it's normally I we would have still gotten the point. So thank you very much. I encourage us all to please, let's respond and make comment based on the fact that we're actually thinking about the entire community and we're actually interested in the community and making comments based on that. You want to respond... Do you have something to say to him? 0:34:10 Douglas Onyango: Yeah. 0:34:10 Seun Ojedeji: Okay, good. Go ahead. 0:34:11 Douglas Onyango: Andrew, I think you've raised two questions: The first is how we arrive at the 40% number I said earlier. Yes, I agree with you that the issues we could go with any number but my premise was simple: You are an African-domiciled operation, you primarily came to AFRINIC as opposed to any other RIR because you predominantly would like to run operations in Africa. The core of your networks and stuff is in Africa as opposed to any other region. To that extent therefore, it's implied that at least there should be a certain percentage if for any other thing maybe the bulk of your operation or your networks will be in Africa, and that is why say, we, from that we can say there should be more of your resources being within the region than there is outside of the region. That is how the 40%, 60%, 60/40 comes about. [French] 0:35:21 Arnaud Amelina: Excuse me, Andrew. I would like to... 0:35:29 Seun Ojedeji: Andrew, is this a follow-up, or a new comment? 0:35:31 Andrew Alston: It is a follow-up. 0:35:33 Seun Ojedeji: So please can you go ahead? You can go ahead, please. 0:35:35 Andrew Alston: Douglas, you are right that the bulk of the operations are in Africa, but what happens in the event of me getting one very large customer that is growing their business beyond the regions of this continent? They are getting circuits from me to come back into this continent, and to number their resources, they require IP space from me because every LIR here provides IP addresses to their customers. I get one customer who is very large, that could represent multimillion dollar revenues to me. Do I turn him away because I'm gonna be violating some arbitrary number? If you're gonna give me a number, give me a number that's based on fact, not some arbitrary number that may end up costing me millions and millions of revenue, which in turn will produce tax revenue which will grow this continent. 0:36:34 Douglas Onyango: Thanks Andrew. You say I have an arbitrary number but I probably should ask something because you're premising your argument also on an arbitrary assumption that this customer is going to ask you for address space over and above the 40% that AFRINIC can afford, or I'm proposing should afford you. 0:36:57 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah. So, just a minute. One more thing I'd like to add to the process. So, if you have a follow-up comment or if you need to stay at the back of the line, and then we can get to you next. So, let me take the question from the back. 0:37:14 Douglas Onyango: I'm sorry. Just... I was finishing, one question. So, Andrew, my question to you is, you... Is there a number other than 40 you are more comfortable with? But, please... 0:37:24 Seun Ojedeji: But please, while you are thinking about that before it gets to you. The next person can... 0:37:31 Arnaud Amelina: Thank you Mr. President. [French] 0:37:34 Arnaud Amelina: Please, I understand well the concern of Mr. Andrew. However, we all know that the network was global before it has been regionalized. So, if a company, whatever it is, changes region for any reason or wants to extend its services in another region, so nothing can impede this company to buy a new IP address in this region. The IP address block reserved for the region for Africa is managed by AFRINIC. So, if your IP is blocked so you are obliged or you are supposed to use them in an African region. We do not encourage AFRINIC to authorize, of course, blocks to be used in other regions. So, the African region is developing, we want to, of course, to use this IP resources. They are really critical and we would like to allow people who have means to manage a great country too because they do have the capacity now. What are we going to tell the others who want these blocks? Are we going to give them... That we gave them to rich companies or to rich people? Thank you. 0:39:16 Seun Ojedeji: Okay. You are no longer... Okay. So, Mark please. 0:39:24 Mark Elkins: Mark Elkins, Personal Capacity running an ISP. I like the proposal, much neater than last time. I like the 40%, I like the whole concept and if the gentleman standing behind me. I do have this legacy /16 and I can do it at $10 an IP. [laughter] 0:39:51 Andrew Alston: Okay. So, now I've gotta pay 600,000 per /16 instead of 800,000, great change! Look, for me the number would be zero. I mean, the number would be I can use whatever I want where I want. I'll give you an example. We've got a customer that we are working with and I cannot name the customer. The customer has 200 and something offices around the world, has fairly significant African operations as well. If I give that customer enough IP space to remove the NAT, and NAT by AFRINIC's own current statements is not something they support, it will create a problem within this region. So, I can go and tell this customer, "Go and get this space elsewhere," in which case, he carries a financial burden, or he goes to somebody who's prepared to break the rules and violate the policy which will never be picked up by AFRINIC. The chances of it being picked up are almost null. And then I lose the business. 0:40:58 Andrew Alston: For all that happens with this policy, is that it encourages people to be fraudulent. Let's not kid ourselves guys. Currently we have... In the last year, if my figures are correct, allocated approximately a /10 out of 2.71 /8s that are still remaining. At that rate, before we hit soft landing policy, it will be 7.98 years. Where is the problem here? All we are doing at the moment, by hindering people getting space, is encouraging fraud, is encouraging people to come and take the space and violate the policies. Let us rather be open and say to people, "If you want the space, pay for it. Fund the organization." It's no secret that the financials are out there. They're on the mailing list, they just went out. Of a $4 million revenue, as per the financials, AFRINIC managed to generate an entire $19,000 in surplus. It's in the financial. Instead we say, "Keep the space to ourselves, let's hold on to the space," while we sit there and question our own ability to operate is a going concern, in the name of arbitrary numbers. I have an issue with this. 0:42:24 Seun Ojedeji: Owen, please. 0:42:25 Seun Ojedeji: Owen DeLong, Akamai and ARIN Advisory Council, but speaking strictly as an interested member of the community and on my own behalf. The issue with Mr. Alston's point of view is that there are a lot of non-African companies out there that are looking at the wealth of space remaining in the AFRINIC free-pool and looking for ways to create whatever artificial entity they need to create within the region and looking at doing whatever they need to do to become eligible to get whatever they can of that space and export it of the continent. AFRINIC is well behind in its development of the internet compared to much of the world, and as such, I think preserving those addresses for development on continent is a worthy goal that should be considered very carefully. 0:43:30 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you Owen. Do you have any comment on what has been said so far? 0:43:37 Seun Ojedeji: No. I think... 0:43:39 Seun Ojedeji: I think Christian was before? Yeah. 0:43:43 Christian Bope: Yeah. Thank you. When I read the summary of the proposal, it says, "Currently AFRINIC policy does not exclusively allow or dis-allow out of regions use of internet resource numbers." As Bob Marley says, I quote, "If you know your history, you would know where your coming from." Based on the discussion which is not true, you see that the summary is not true meaning that even the rest is not true. But let me give one example why I'm saying that it is not true. Because when AFRINIC was created the pioneer knew that the network is global. But decision has been made in such a way that the IP resources will be allocated regionally. Secondly, it was clear enough that AFRINIC is to save African region. 0:44:43 Christian Bope: If I analyze further your policies, my conclusion is... Maybe my conclusion could be wrong, but you will tell me if I'm wrong, but my conclusion is, it seems to me that we are trying to mortgaging the development of Africa. And at the same time we are the depriving the Africa in their own resources, and for me is the same thing happening in oil mining. We are trying to apply the same politics in our IP resources. I think if you want me to support this policies, based on the arguments you have provided, I think is even not 1% of what you should use to convince us. Just to summarize my view, I think maybe 500% I'm against this policy. Thank you. [laughter] 0:45:39 Douglas Onyango: Christian, I think there maybe... We talking past each other in as far as this policy is concerned. I, in no way, shape, or form, are trying to advance the notion of mortgaging AFRINIC or Africa's resources to any other region. Actually everything I'm doing in the policy is to make sure we give this address space to legitimate members of the community to use as they please, but being conscious that some of them actually have operations that span outside of the region. So unless I misunderstand what you're saying or unless you were responding to Andrew's comment, if this is targeted at the proposal, I would say, I am in agreement with you totally. I would like to as much as possible make sure the resources are used within the region or used by legitimate organizations with networks, regardless of their location. 0:46:45 Christian Bope: Okay. I think maybe it's my fault, maybe I should be more precise, and let me just put it in a different way. My intervention was mainly for Andrew and for you at the same time. Maybe the way I do the line it wasn't clear enough. The last parts of those who want to deprive the Africa, using their resources, is mainly following what Andrew said. This is my feeling, maybe it could be wrong but I think if you provide more evidence it will convince me in the future. But right now, if you should ask me that question, I will say that it's the same way people do in our mining. And coming to your policies, my take of it is, maybe it could be wrong but you would need to provide more evidence in order to convince the community of the benefit of your policy for the interest of our community. Thank you. But as it is now, the argument you have provided so far, for me is not enough. I can say it's just 1%. Maybe you have more evidence? We don't know, just bring it up and we will discuss on the table. Thank you. 0:48:02 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you Christian. Now I'm trying to figure out... I think the middle person came after Christian, so go ahead, please. The middle... Yeah, you. Yeah. [pause] 0:48:42 Abdul Hakim: Good morning. I'm Abdul Hakim from Tunisia. I work with ____ ANESP in Tunisia, and I totally agree with the element which says that we need to reserve our IP addresses for Africa, because the others have enough addresses and they just drain them all. So we need to have a policy to keep of course these IP addresses for Africa. So, if African countries do not have resources to migrate to IPv6 rapidly, it requirs... It's time consuming. And then our attempts to migrate to IPv6 but it takes time, and we do not have time to migrate to IPv6. But these operators have the means to invest on the IPv6 and if we open the opportunity to migrate these IP addresses towards other, of course there will be used all very quickly. So I totally agree with this policy of reserving these IP addresses for the African continent and for Africa. 0:50:02 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you very much. Professor Nii? 0:50:04 Nii Quaynor: Hello. Mr Chairman, co-Chairs, I think we have not really changed the discussion much, and that is the concern I was trying to express earlier. We are still using our IPv4s. Reservation may be an issue later, we are using them and we need to have them as well as the v6 for our work, so that is what we are doing. I tend to support Owen's notion that if we begin to go in a certain direction we might inherit some abuses or misuse of the numbers unintended. I believe that what we have to do, is to justify, based on need, every allocation. That is the normal practice. So, if you believe that you're extending your network beyond here, you have to justify it. You have to justify, and we have every tool within our RSA and our policies to confirm that you are using it for that purpose or not. 0:51:10 Nii Quaynor: If you are requesting for a resource, that you need something else there, you can get to the region and get it. Nothing stops you from having numbers in those regions. So, trying to take the numbers out of here by policy, to me seems to be a difficulty. On the other hand, if it is your intention to truly balkanize the numbers, okay, then why don't you write a policy to become a global registry for IPv4. Then we can discuss it in that light and ask whether it is beneficial to us or not. But to be halfway, saying that the X%, and I don't know what percent means in the slash language anyway, it becomes a bit difficult for me. I prefer that we not go forward with this policy, and rather figure out the right way to encourage people to get members in the other regions and promote the use of our v4, v6 strategy and to help our operators expand. 0:52:16 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. Douglas, do you have any response to that? 0:52:20 Douglas Onyango: No. 0:52:21 Seun Ojedeji: No. Okay, the front, please. 0:52:24 Benjamin Eshun: Hello. My name is Benjamin Eshun and I'm from Ghana. I would like to say that I support both what Chris said and then my fellow country Dr. Nii said and the gentleman from... He spoke French sorry, I don't know where he's from. But it seems that they're all trying to address the same problem. And I've been trying to get this argument in my mind over the past few days. I still don't get it. Because, AFRINIC was really set up for the African region unless I'm mistaken, I think that is what it was set for. And it's true that yes, there are organisations that are within Africa that might maybe, if I have a ____ gold bar, if I want to expand their needs beyond Africa. But why can't they acquire address space in that region especially v6, since we want to even promote the adoption of v6? So this is a very good argument for adoption of v6 in those regions, so that yes, you can acquire v6 in the other regions, integrate into your network and expand the whole community. 0:53:20 Benjamin Eshun: Because we are also... There are institutions here which we... One of the foundations is that we need to protect and ensure that organisations that are not yet up to that standard can later on acquire the resources and use them. But if like the comment said, "We are always giving away our minerals, we are always giving away our resources," then we are not helping ourselves in any way. There is technology available to make the whole system work, yet we are saying that, "No, we have to restrict the v6 for... " Actually it wasn't even clear whether we're talking about v4 space, v6 space, or what? Are you talking about, primarily if it's v6 space, why can't they use it from other region? If it's v4, why countries... Why must we use the v4... So, this argument doesn't actually sound very good in my mind but maybe somebody can enlighten me because I just don't get it. Sorry. Thank you. 0:54:21 Seun Ojedeji: Andrew, please. 0:54:23 Andrew Alston: Okay. Let me first start by responding to the cost to use v6. A week before last, I was in San Francisco with a major vendor and I went to them and I said, "I'm in a position right now to eliminate v4 on two and a half thousand devices. However, I've got a problem. Where's my LDP6, where is my RSVP6?" You know what they said to me? "Sorry, even though you bought the hardware less than a year ago, we're not putting the features on there, change all your hardware." The cost to do that, multi-million dollars. So, yes, there are people who are telling me, "Use v6. Use v6." Let me tell you, I've spent the better part of eight weeks sitting at my desk, logged in to labs, trying everything I can to get rid of the v4 to switch to a v6-only topology on large segments of the network. Sadly, thanks to the IETF dragging its heels, it's not an option at this point because there were many many parts of v4 that are simply not available in v6, that are critical to operators like the one for whom I work. 0:55:46 Andrew Alston: Secondly, as a point of order, I need to understand as part of the process, when was the last update of this policy submitted? And as per the policy development process, were the timelines for updates adhered to? Because I believe that there was specific days, delays, where you have to submit it, it has to go to the mailing list if it is not submitted in time. It is dealt with purely on the list and they can be no call for consensus. So, can I please, I maybe wrong here, but can I please get some comment on whether or not what we are discussing here is actually even in line with the PDP process? [pause] 0:56:36 Ernest Byaruhanga: Andrew, to answer your question. To answer you question, Andrew, yes, the updates to the proposal was submitted by the authors well before one week and that's quite in line with the PDP for the updates to appear in what is being discussed today. Thank you. 0:56:55 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah, that's the response. I think we've said this, I have also said this over and over again because of this session. And I think it was good but Ernest repeated it as well. Lou, please. 0:57:11 Lu : Lu Han From, Cloud Innovation. I'm here just to give a few update of our numbers of some international company of the overseas revenues. Apple received 64% of its revenues from oversea. Facebook received at least 55%, Google received 58%, Huawei received 66%. Just to remind everybody here, these are large corporations which their home country have ____ large, American and China basically the two largest economy on the planet. These still receive more than half of their revenue from overseas market. So, I believe for a true African company to go global, to become one of the major player in the global market, the local market, its own regional market should not be played as a major part of its revenue. So it's logical for this companies having more business over its home region than from its own region, and that's where you have real true international company for Africa. So just one comment there, you should use more IP address in the region than out of region, I think it's not really that good for developing a true international African companies. Thank you very much. 0:58:27 Douglas Onyango: Lou, I think you've decided to equate this to revenue, which I think is flawed in a sense. I think the question should be, why we got so much revenue from outside or from international markets, but how much of its address space was coming from its domiciled market. It should be a question you should also be asking. You will realize... Yes. 0:58:55 Lu: I'm just basically point out to that. If they're the true multinational African company in the continent, their overseas expansion will probably exceeding their home market revenue, and home market business of course. And if IP address network is their major business, then the overseas use will exceed their home use as well. It's just logical play ____ I think. But the company I'm naming, they're internet company they're not necessarily network company, but the company I'm naming, they do from two large economy on the planet. If you start naming a company like Shell or BP, which is ____, relatively small company like in Netherlands, their overseas revenue would exceed 99%. So basically, for every African company to go through international, Africa should open its door ____ really. Thank you. 0:59:46 Douglas Onyango: Okay. And I again, want to reaffirm, if you've read the policy statements for this proposal. First things first, we try, we would like to make it possible for you to get address space, so if you want to expand outside you can do that. 1:00:03 Lu: Okay. Limit to 40%? [background conversation] 1:00:08 Seun Ojedeji: Okay, thank you. I see the line is quite long now and so I will ask that you please be as brief and specific and precise as much as possible so that we can actually not miss our tea break or lunch this time around, so not just something we can miss. So I'll go to, I think it's Mike? 1:00:35 Mike Silber: Thanks Seun. Mike Silber, Liquid Telecom. Let me moderate some of the comments made by my colleague. I think the first issue from my perspective is that we do have a problem. I'm aware of entities that have been trying to manipulate the local requirements to obtain access to IPv4 space. I think the second thing is that staff need guidance. At the moment, staff action is so much arbitrary in terms of deciding regarding allocations and they don't have clear guidelines regarding those allocations so I think that a policy that is certainly admirable to address those two concerns. 1:01:19 Mike Silber: My issue though is that at the moment, I think the policy is still somewhat missing and this where I agree completely with Nii, that while those may be laudable objectives, I think we need to give more thought to how we achieve it rather than putting in and... Here I'm trying to agree with Andrew. I think that a number is necessary or maybe is necessary, but the 40% seems arbitrary. There hasn't been a clear logic behind that, maybe as Nii was suggesting, it should be a 100% in-region unless you got____ session or maybe we should split it differently, but at the moment I think the problem is there, we need to solve for it. But I'm not really sure this policy actually achieves what it's intended to do. 1:02:07 Seun Ojedeji: Mike, do you have any concrete suggestions at this point in time on what could be done to enhance the proposal? 1:02:15 Mike Silber: I think we need to spend a bit more time with it, but the one thing I've been thinking about is actually separating in-region and out of region allocations that you could apply as a member for an outer region allocation. So instead of creating this arbitrary 40%, you could apply and then there will be certain rules around that. So it maybe that your other region allocation can't be larger than your in-region allocation unless justified or motivated. Essentially, those people who are looking to arbitrage our existing IPv6 resources are not going to build businesses on the continent. They may have a single sales office. They maybe an international concern that has a few touch points onto the continent but their not gonna build a real operation. And I think we need to give staff the guidance as to how to deal with in-region and out of regions. So that's one that comes to mind at the moment but I think we need to engage further on the question. 1:03:14 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. Thanks for providing the specifics. Boubakar. [French] 1:03:21 Boubakar Barry: Thank you. I am Boubakar Barry. I'm going to brief and concise. I would like to say that I think the period chosen for such a policy is not... It did not come at a good time. We are using resources which are rare today and the resources we have shall be used in our continent. Our aim is to develop the network in our continent. When there are other justified needs, of course AFRINIC can take the decision that it should take. In any case, I cannot accept this policy and we need to think about continuing of course or doing anything else. [French] 1:04:30 Ali Haji: To go straight, I'm Ali Haji from the Komodo Island. To go straight to the point it's not really good in my view, to expatriate our resources, and we know how much Africa suffered and how African resources have been expatriated, and we know how Africa can develop and become within the management of the internet framework... Of course expatriating these resources for financial reason, it's not really good. So before we say that the others who came to take our resources, and if today we, Africans, we start to debate of expatriating our resources, I think this will not allow our children to say good things about us. Consequently I'm against this. We need to try to have some deadlines, 10 to 15 years and by then we can of course go and debate of this. We need to see how Africa is developing and of course we can take a decision by that time. 1:06:00 Douglas Onyango: I think there is a misunderstanding. This proposal does not seek to expatriate address space or any other resource to anywhere else for that matter. The address space or any other resources that we like to allow members use outside of the region is not in my view an expatriation. That's when you hand it over to a company that comes from a different region which is not what we are doing. We are allowing our members who are African domiciled to actually use this, because we understand that some of them may have network requirements, they might have infrastructure, they may have customers that they need to service and though some of those components of their networks may not be within the service region and as such we need for them to have space that they can use. So no, we are not repatriating address space anywhere. Thank you. 1:07:02 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you, Douglas. Considering that some of the comments are actually similar and it seems Douglas may also have been doing some repetitions, I would like to also... Right now, I'm coming to the front now so it should be front, middle, back so if you want to reshuffle yourself on the queue, you may do that but it would be one, one, one, then before Douglas response. So after three comments we'll get a response from Douglas on the three comments. So please go ahead. 1:07:35 Abdeljalil Bong: My name is Abdeljalil, from ____ Chad. My intervention will be in French. [French] 1:07:42 Abdeljalil Bong: Thank you very much. And I thank you Douglas for this proposal. What I think is that it is not the ideal moment to discuss of this in Africa. We are in a transition period from IPv4 to IPv6. When we look at yesterday's report, we see that Egypt and South Africa consume more than 15% of the IPv6. As for the other countries, they are still of course in transition. So, as you can see today Africa has not consumed all the addresses of IPv4 and IPv6. So, of course, if others from outside Africa who just want to come here, they just use their resources. We do not of course make our future generations take in hostages. Many African will be using the resources, so they need to also have IPv6 addresses, so as we are in this transition phase so of course we need of course to see later on whether there is an opportunity to grant IPv6 addresses to others, but for the time being we need to wait for any request before taking in decision. 1:09:22 Seun Ojedeji: Middle. 1:09:24 Nii Quaynor: Thank you Mr. Chair. I heard that some are aware of manipulation. I like the facts to be brought to the public so we'll know. I heard a statement that is arbitrary. I disagree. I think our RSC is very clear. Very very clear. You got to justify and if it's justified, staff will evaluate and it would to be allocated. If people want assistance to do evaluation, it's a different statement, but to say that it is not clear, it's arbitrary, I think it's not fair to AFRINIC. It is very clear in my opinion. Having said that, perhaps you did not like my idea, I'm trying to give you new things. If your decision is to become 40% global, okay, 40% global registry, I said consider 100% global registry. I did not get any response. 1:10:37 Nii Quaynor: Now I'm suggesting that maybe you would rather want to work with the inter-RIR transfer and transfer 40% to the other regions, then we can go there and get it. What I'm saying is that the rules are very clear. Let's just follow it. Let's not try to bend it half way, X%, Y%, that sort of thing. You justify, you get it. And if your justifications doesn't match, well next one, we will study it, investigate it and we may even take back the old numbers from you. It's as simple as that. Everything is there. It's in the RSC, it's in your by-laws. You have all the powers. They are the [1:11:18] ____ BCPs you can use, so this discussion I actually think is not the rightful course. Thank you very much, sir. [applause] 1:11:28 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. From the back. 1:11:30 S?: Okay, thank you. Thank you, ____ Prof has mentioned some of the things that I wish to say, so I have to be brief. From the context of the discussion, if you can remember our discussion in 2011 in Tanzania, it's still the same discussion. We only change, should I say the name or we changed... But it's still the same context. Why do we have AFRINIC? What is the essence of AFRINIC? And we need to follow the rules the by-laws as Prof has said, getting out of that it means for me I felt as if there is no need for the AFRINIC. Thank you. 1:12:23 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. Douglas, will you then respond to the requests. 1:12:26 Douglas Onyango: Thank you very much. That will be the last question. I think this is Andrew's... The Andrew effect still hanging on up til now, and no, these policies are in no way the same, it's in no way the same as what Andrew proposed in the... [laughter] But anyway, to come back to the Nii's comments, that Nii presented, he seems to be of the opinion that maybe we would like again to expatriate this addresses. I think that's why he has decided to propose why not become, what he called a 'global registry', and I think you, I and everyone else do not want to do that, we would like to maintain that the address space be used and be allocated within the region. 1:13:20 Douglas Onyango: However, a times of changed, nature of business of our members has evolved and it is imperative that members now have a little bit of provision where they are able to connect one or two or five devices, sometimes some of them are not within the region. So this is the reason why it is necessary for us to have a little bit of space that we can leeway that we can allow them to use some of the address space outside. Of course this does not preclude use of justification as a means for assessment of request but still stands, we are just saying in the way out of region we just we would like to add this to the number of justifications that we can possibly prevent for an allocation one assignment. This is what I have to say. 1:14:12 Seun Ojedeji: All right, thank you. Front. 1:14:15 Owen DeLong: Owen DeLong, ARIN AC. I really want to revert on some of Mr. Hans' comments. First, addresses do not equal revenue and revenue do not equal addresses. So the fact that majority of Facebook, Google and service revenue is outside of their headquarters in the US, is really not relevant to their address consumption. Second, if you look at all the companies he mentioned, they all have the resources from multiple RIRs. They all have gotten space in the regions where they are operating, from the various RIRs where they are operating. None of them is trying to take AFRINIC resources and put them somewhere else. 1:14:57 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you Owen. Middle. 1:15:02 Mike 5ilber: Hi. This is Mark Elkins again. I have no wish to go after companies, probably African companies like Liquid who are doing an amazing job here. So may be more than one criteria needs to be brought into this rather than just a flat 40%. And may be it would be where does that organization and all of its holding company operate. If they operate wholly within Africa, then I will be a lot more lenient to them because obviously they operate, their profits, etcetera, are going to be within Africa, which is great. So therefore, I wouldn't oppose to them using a higher percentage out of the continent out of their service region. Whereas if it's, let's say it was Google, pick a big Google, where literally everything they do is out of the consent, so if they came and ask for our space then I would the majority of their space has to be used within the continent. So maybe more than one measurement criteria might be a good idea. 1:16:07 Douglas Onyango: Mark I agree with the need for checks and balances but I think this particular one that you are proposing for differential treatment of members and request, I think this particular criteria could be problematic because I see avenues for manipulation and abuse to the extent that we already have members who have presented information that has not manned out to be right on application, not just here but in other RIRs. So, I see that this could again be subject to send issues. 1:16:44 Mike 5ilber: Hey, I was trying. 1:16:45 Douglas Onyango: Thanks a lot. 1:16:48 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah. The back. However, please, Douglas, do take note of responding after we get three comments, yeah. 1:16:58 Christian Bope: Okay, Christian Bope is speaking on my own capacity. I have a straightforward question for Douglas. Douglas, maybe... You may be informed better than me. What other RIRs also have the similar policy? Other RIRs, they have the similar policy? What we are discussing now? 1:17:21 Douglas Onyango: Yes, some of them, for instance ARIN. 1:17:25 Christian Bope: Okay. Maybe it will be better if can share the link for that. And another one is just a general comment, because I have heard that someone is saying if a company operates in Africa, they have the right to do everything they want, but we should not forget that they can operate in Africa but the benefit is ____ not used for the African people. ____ if possible. Thank you. 1:17:52 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. Okay, so Douglas, there was a comment in front, the other time, did you have any response on that? Fine. Okay, so we'll start from the front. 1:18:04 Benjamin Eshun: Douglas, if you don't mind, could you go back to the first presentation on your slide because I have a question, and actually it's a comment for the AFRINIC staff. 1:18:12 Douglas Onyango: This? 1:18:13 Benjamin Eshun: No, the one that did a summary about, why this proposal was there in the first place. No, you were saying something that it wasn't explicitly stated that in the AFRINIC this... Whether out of region was allowed... Yeah. There was a statement that the... Yeah, so go back. Yes, the current ____ active policy doesn't explicitly allow the out of region use of AFRINIC resources. I was trying to verify this and I went to AFRINIC site to try and download the constitution and the form documents about AFRINIC. Unfortunately, the constitution was missing from the link, so I'll be grateful if the AFRINIC staff could upload it so that I can verify some information from there. So, the link for the AFRINIC constitution is not there... It's there, but there's no file attached so I can't pick it. 1:19:05 Seun Ojedeji: Do you mean the by-law? 1:19:07 Benjamin Eshun: No, the constitution itself. 1:19:09 Seun Ojedeji: Constitution. 1:19:10 Benjamin Eshun: Yes. 1:19:11 Seun Ojedeji: The by-law... The by-law is on the website. 1:19:14 Benjamin Eshun: Yeah. No, some of the documents are missing from that page, please, I just checked. 1:19:18 Seun Ojedeji: Ah, okay. Staff, please take notes. 1:19:21 Benjamin Eshun: Okay. The other question is, how would this new policy, if you can indulge me and answer, solve the problem where tomorrow a new company just flies into Accra, and then in a month or so it registers and is now incorporated in Ghana, and they now request for IP resources, justifies and shows its financial statements and then says "Okay, now I want to operate in Dubai, so please I need... " What do you call this? "Please allow me to have 40% of my IP addresses in Dubai." How would this check this kind of, if it's going on in Accra? Could you please answer my question please. 1:20:09 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. He would answer the question. The next, the middle, yes? [French] 1:20:25 F1: My question and my... Do you have the means to control this before discussing this 40% or 60%, do you have the means to monitor whether the rules are accepted or not, whether 60% have been used in Africa and 40% elsewhere? I don't think you have an oversight mean... Even if we have known some people use these addresses via other techniques, if we open the road to 40%, how can we be sure that the 60% are used in Africa? Thank you. [French] 1:21:16 Sophia Nazar : I'm Sophia Nazar As a professional of the internet and telecom, we are not favourable for this kind of policy. However, if we look back to fix a threshold, 40% or 30%, isn't it better to make some projection over the years to come? And then we can give ourselves a deadline, so that we can implement the IPv6 for economic development. I think this is inevitable. If for example we fix a 15 year deadline, and then we see what do we have in term of stock, and thus we can decide this threshold. Another proposal would be to affect some resources over a limited period which could be renewable. 1:22:25 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. 1:22:27 20 Paul...: My name is Paul....., I represent... I'm talking on my behalf but I work for Liquid Telecom. I'm basically interested in the whole debate because I think it would take a lot of time, but my main concern is that for the 60% that stay in Africa and the 40% that's allowed to be used out of Africa, the main concern is that, that 60% or whichever number that you come up with, how can you guarantee that these companies won't be acquired by someone else after they've acquired the address space. To me it looks more like a way of basically having gold reserves, because these IP addresses are being taken to be gold, and then hoping that you'll be able to have this for free and sell it somewhere. So, there must be a ____ some way to check to be able to have ways of basically making sure that whoever is getting the IP addresses is going to use them, when they're going to use them, where they're going to use them for, and then justify that, give them a time period, if they don't do that, then take the IP addresses away from them. Or better still, get rid of the policy and have something that's going to be what everyone seems to be agreeing with, justify why you need to use them, and get the IP addresses. 1:23:37 Douglas Onyango: Okay, thank you. I'll start with your comment. There are already provisions for ____ this sort of thing, where if address space is not used for the purpose for which it was originally intended, the member is say to be in breach and there are processes in place that deal with that sort of issue. Now, going back to the very first comment, a gentleman wanted to actually look at the by-laws so he could verify if a statement that is on my summary. Yes, you would get the by-laws but probably the by-laws is not what you want to look at. You want to look at the allocation policies for IPv4, IPv6 and the other number resources. That would give you a better answer to the question you seemed to ask. Then there was a question... The question is, does AFRINIC have the capacity to actually monitor this? I would let staff answer, but then I will just point out that before when I first made the policy proposal, as is customary, we asked staff to do an assessment and in that assessment I saw no indication that staff is not... Incapable of implementing this policy. Probably Ernest, you want to add? 1:25:15 Douglas Onyango: Is Staff capable of monitoring the 60, 40 usage? 1:25:21 Erneat Byaruhanga: Well, if I remember correctly, our response to you in the assessment was that we can enforce that based on the provisions of what the policies state regarding registration of IP addresses and where those IP addresses have been... Which country those IP addresses have been tagged to. For example, if you have one large ISP that has registered IP addresses in the Whois database, they have to tag those registrations with the countries where the customers belong, where their networks belong. So what we look at is how many of those or what percentage of those have been tagged with countries that are not in Africa, and this specifically applies to LIRs. And it therefore makes it quite impossible to enforce that on end-users because they're not required to register their... They're not supposed to have customers in the first place, otherwise they will not be end-users. So, it is enforcible only to that extent based on the information that the LIRs choose to register in the Whois database about where those IP addresses are actually being used. 1:26:49 Seun Ojedeji: So, thank you. If there's anybody that wants to join the queue, please do so now. I'm gonna draw the red tape, the imaginary red tape, so the floor is closed and we'll take all the comments. From the middle. 1:27:10 21 Isatou Jah: Okay. I think Douglas, the purpose for which you probably intended to... Why you came up with this policy document is, what we are saying is that it might have the reverse effect. Pretty much what this might give some people will be to give them a green light to go ahead and use these resources outside the region. My second part of my contribution is directed towards AFRINIC. We'd like to know in the justification process, do you consider region where the IPs are used? And if so, I think you just talked about it, how is it really monitored when they come back to request address space? Do you really look at the region where the IPs are being used? Thank you. 1:27:58 Mike Silber: Mike Silber back at the mic. If I can possibly from the floor respond to that, because I think what's clearer in here is that this policy is not giving people a green light to use address space out of the region. At the moment there's no traffic signal. At the moment you're free to do so or not do so as you so choose and this trying to put at least some restriction on it. And I think that's positive. I'm not sure I agree with the way that it's being done but it is positive. I think the other thing is we're getting a clear message from staff that the only time that you can really do proper validation is when somebody comes back and you can look at where address space is being used. But staff at the moment don't have the resources to do ongoing proactive monitoring to do an assessment and to start giving people a yellow card saying, "You're on 39% out of region. You've got to now pull it back." So, I think those two things are taken. 1:28:54 Mike Silber: I just wanted to respond to Nii's question where he seemed to be questioning whether abuse is actually happening. So, a couple of years ago, people may or may not know I'm a lawyer, I get a call from a colleague of mine to help her with a problem. A client of her is out of region has incorporated a company in South Africa for no purpose other than to become an AFRINIC member and to apply for address space. And AFRINIC staff picked that up and they reject the request for allocation. She phones me and she asks why and what are the recourses and what can be done. So I take her through the policies, I explain the purpose of AFRINIC and I tell her that staff are entirely justified given the profile of her client, in rejecting their request. 1:29:43 Mike Silber: So, I bumped into her a few months later and asked her if her client had resolved it and her answer was, "Yes." They looked at ____ details, the person who didn't look African, the name of the directors didn't look Africans. The address was a post box essentially at a law firm. All tell-tale signs that staff would easily pick up to realize that this is just a shell. And what did they do? They changed all of that incorporated new company and they got an allocation. I don't know what the name is, so I can't point a finger at it. But I do know that they found what they've missed the first time round and they got it right. And what are they doing? It's simply a shell company used to hold IP addresses, no other purpose whatsoever, 'cause they needed a nice IPv4 allocation. 1:30:33 Mike Silber: And that's the concern my colleague raised about somebody setting up shop in Ghana tomorrow and then wanting address space being used in Dubai the following week. I think we need to give a bit more thought to what we're trying to achieve here, and then we can actually go ahead and try and achieve it. 1:30:52 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. 1:30:53 Barry Macharia: Just a second, Douglas. We'd closed the imaginary red line on the line now. I'm seeing people still queuing up for comment. So I'll allow the two gentlemen that are there to join the queue. Douglas, comment? 1:31:05 D3: Okay. Thank you Mike for the comment. I agree completely while still some work has to be done in trying to make sure first, we have a proper proposal and second, and if not most importantly, that this proposal policy when ratified can actually be implemented by staff. So probably this is a challenge to staff, probably to figure out if they come to that conclusion that it is impossible for them to actually monitor this policy. I see someone, staff from AFRINIC, coming to the mic. I will ask them to comment on this. 1:31:43 Amreesh Phokeer: Yes, indeed. My name is Amreesh, AFRINIC staff. So we have started a project recently about analysing which resources have been used outside AFRINIC region. So, we are actually analysing the routing table, the Whois database and we are also using data from geo-localisation. So, this is a work in progress and we are hoping to give you details and results by maybe end of July. Thank you. 1:32:12 Douglas Onyango: Now. Thank you. So what I hear from you is that once this... What you think is going to happen is if this project serves it's purpose, we shall be able to do better than we are doing right now in as far as being able to tell where and who is using resources. Is that correct? 1:32:30 Amreesh Phokeer: Indeed. Yes, we will be able to give you some more precise information, some facts actually. 1:32:35 Douglas Onyango: Okay. Thanks a lot. 1:32:37 Barry Macharia: Andrew? 1:32:39 Andrew Alston: Okay, I've got two comments. First of all, just for the record, I actually just asked Owen if there was a similar policy in ARIN as Douglas said. And the answer is no, there is not. There is is a proposal, but there is currently no such policy in ARIN. Secondly, one of the things that was debated at great length in Mauritius around this policy which is still not addressed is "What is the definition of out of region space?". We've got a policy here that's making a number about out of region space, but there's no definition and I'll tell you why I say that. Let's say for example I have a VSAT hub sitting in the UK. The clients, at the end of the VSAT are all in Africa. The space is originated out of the UK, but the clients using it are on the ground. Am I in-region? Or if I've got a VSAT hub sitting in Johannesburg, my clients serve in London, the space is originated in Jo'burg, my clients are in London, is that out of region? No one can tell me. As for the comments that we are analysing Whois on geo-location data to determine in and out of business... In and out of region space. 1:34:04 Andrew Alston: I sat in February this year in San Antonio with the guys from Renesis who specialize in geo-location data. And they admitted to me that they haven't got it right and they specialise in it. And I am helping them, giving them data, because the geo-location is based on the Whois as it is. And if you look at the current Whois database within AFRINIC, I've got space that I am allocating down to various countries. But because the main operations company sits in Mauritius, if you look at the geo-location data, even though I have specifically allocated to Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Zambia etcetera, the geo-location still points out that it is in in Mauritius. So the geo-location data on the internet today is not accurate. And therefore I say, first of all before we implement this, give me an out of region definition that is concrete, which has been asked for since Mauritius. And secondly, don't rely on geolocation database because I am quite prepared to anybody who wants, can come and sit to me and I will show you how badly wrong it actually is. 1:35:24 Barry Macharia: Mark Elkins? Yes. 1:35:26 Mark Elkins: Mark Elkins. From my heart, AFRINIC is meant to give IP resources basically to the African continent. Obviously there will be some a little bit outside the connections back into Africa. If a person applies, as you heard from Mike earlier on, it's possible for an organisation to fake, literally all their organisational details. Our staff at AFRINIC do a great job, but they are limited, right now, to only checking those company details. If that company then moves the IPs and uses those IPs out of the continent, technically, today, there is no recourse. Now, our staff do an amazing job already but at the end of the day, even if they know the addresses are being used outside of the continent, they can do nothing. 1:36:32 Mark Elkins: This policy is by no means perfect but it's the first reasonable opportunity of at least moving in the right direction so that if they can see blatant abuse of IP address space, which from the way the company is set up is for within the region really, that's what I believe, at least they can do something. Right now, if you do nothing and you do not support such a policy as this, nothing happens. The situation does not change and we continue to bleed IP addresses out of Africa where they are of no use to this continent at all. So I would still plead with the audience. I know it's not a profit policy but it's a lot better than no policy at all. Thank you. [applause] 1:37:30 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. Madhvi, do you intend to say something? Please, go ahead. 1:37:39 S?: I'm not sure if I can speak... 1:37:40 Seun Ojedeji: Just a minute, Madhvi. Were you on the queue before? From the back? You just joined the queue? 1:37:48 Madhvi Gokool: Yeah. 1:37:50 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah, actually we closed the queue. No, not Madhvi, I'm talking to the back. We closed the queue. Sorry. Yes, please go ahead. 1:37:58 Madhvi Gokool: Okay. Madhvi, Registration Services. We have the policy, we have ICPTU documents and we also have the registration services agreement that members sign with us when they become a member, and then they get the resources. Okay? I just have a comment because we heard that there could be instances where an entity in our region closes shops and goes and sets up in another region that is not... In another country that is out of our region. They are bound, as soon as they become member, a part from the policies, which they complied with, to get the initial resources, then the RSC comes in because now they're bound by the RSC as well. And as if a... Conditions of Service, Section 4A, which says that, "Where a member receiving service under an existing agreement applies for a change or a variation of the type of such service, evaluation of such a change request would be effected." Okay? In terms of the provisions of Clause two. 1:39:13 Madhvi Gokool: Now what does Clause two say? That "For membership application, applicants shall... Where the original information submitted has been the subject of any change, same has to be notified promptly, accurately and fully to AFRINIC by an authoritative and valid contact." We have had requests, even from some operators who requested IP addresses for a specific purpose, but then did not deploy it. They did come back to us and told us about it that what we asked for will not be deployed because there has been a change at the strategy and that they're planning to use it somewhere else, and then we said, "Fine. Let us evaluate the new needs." Okay. I'm just talking from practical experience what we have observed and how we dealt with it, and also the documents that we have to take into consideration apart from the policies. 1:40:17 Seun Ojedeji: And just, Madhvi, before you go, those who don't actually contact you, how do you handle such? 1:40:26 M2: Well, for those who don't contact us, we usually do... With the amount of resources that we have and the work that we're doing at the moment, we are looking at resource request... Initial resource request and additional resource request. So, even if they don't contact us, but if they're coming back for more resources then we will audit the previous allocations and see what's happening. Okay? So if we find that out, then, yeah, we may have to take action because we look at the previous, you stated the needs, did you use it for those needs? 1:41:05 Seun Ojedeji: So the trigger happens on new request? 1:41:12 Madhvi Gokool: At the moment, yes. We're not checking... 1:41:14 Seun Ojedeji: The current. 1:41:15 Madhvi Gokool: Yeah, because there is enough work that's happening. So, we do the checks when they ask for more resources because that's part of the process. You validate what has been already given. 1:41:29 Seun Ojedeji: Alright. Thank you. 1:41:30 Madhvi Gokool: Thank you. 1:41:30 Seun Ojedeji: Douglas, you have something to say? 1:41:32 Douglas Onyango: Yes. Just a response to Andrew on the two issues. The first is out of region definition. Yes, I agree this has not yet been incorporated because the text that I proposed so far, I've come to find out it has one or two holes and we're trying to patch that up. In the next version of the text, there will be a definition. However, you and I understand that the problem at the heart of this proposal is a valid one, and to that extent I welcome you to contribute some text to the definition. I think the one is not to rely on geolocation data, I think that was addressed to the staff, so I will leave it with the staff to respond. 1:42:25 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. We'll take the last two questions or comments. 1:42:28 Abdul... : Yes, just a comment, I am Abdul ____ from Egypt. My comment is, why would they did not have an application that collect all the issues that related to AFRINIC and should be related by AFRINIC before this meeting? My idea behind is that during this meeting we will discuss all the issues that are submitted by the applicant. And after that we will have a proposal to solve a lot of issue inside this meeting. Thank you. 1:42:58 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah. In response to that, there is actually going to be within this agenda, there's going to be one item that has to do with staff experience in policy implementation, that's which would be presented by Madhvi later in the day. So those issues will be raised and if you think there's a need for a policy to fix it, then you can then come up and write a policy for it. 1:43:23 Benjamin Eshun: Okay, thank you Seun. My comment really is simple. From the second paragraph on your thing, "Although the policies does not explicitly allow or dis-allow out of region use of internet resources, that we try to address." However, looking from two documents, the letter from ICANN dated 11th of April 2004 and the by-laws of the AFRINIC constitution, it's addressed to Adiel, and then just to summarize. It explicitly states that in August 2004, shortly after the ICANN meeting in Kampala, blah, blah, blah, AFRINIC Company Limited by guarantee is incorporated in Mauritius under the Companies Act, presented to ICANN application for recognition as an RIR for African region together with the transitioning development, in the corporation with ROM RIPE and in this. 1:44:22 Benjamin Eshun: Sorry I'm talking too fast, but what it's basically saying is that it implies that AFRINIC was to serve Africa region and the other RIRs were to serve the other regions. That's what it implies in the document. So, my simple answer to those who are saying that if you want to do business outside the African region, that is the nature of the beast, you just have to deal with the financial model. But as the documents are implying it's saying that AFRINIC is for resources for the African region and if you go to... I can't read it all here, but 3.4 Section one of the by-laws, states exactly that, that it is for the growth and development of African internet in the African region. And there are other RIRs to deal with the growth of internet in their region. 1:45:04 Benjamin Eshun: So, if you want to move your business elsewhere, that's your problem. You have to deal with the nature of the beast. That is it. I think we shouldn't try and make our own policy just to go and define why there are boundaries and they're set. And to comment what Nii said, yes, if you want to play that game of inter-RIR cooperation, then yes, we must take it to that level because as has been defined, it's very regional specific for devoting resources for that region. Period. Thank you. [applause] 1:45:40 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. Douglas, any final comment based on all the discussions and issues that have been raised? Would you like to give a final view? 1:45:54 Douglas Onyango: Yes. I appreciate all the feedback I've gotten. If the Chairs do not send this, I would definitely be happy to take this back for discussion although it's within the discretion of the Chair to decide what happens. But I've gotten some valuable feedback and I hope that our next draft in the next meeting will definitely be a document that is a lot more acceptable to the community. So thank you very much. [applause] 1:46:26 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you very much Douglas. Thank you very much for all that contributed. Just a minute please. [pause] 1:46:55 Seun Ojedeji: Once again, we appreciate your patience. We have actually exceeded the normal time. However, I think it was important that we discuss this, and it was important that we actually gave enough time for people to express their view. Having said that, I think I'm glad also that the author of this proposal has actually recognized that there are quite a number of issues to address, and myself and my colleague have also recognized that there are issues that need to be addressed on the proposal. So, based on that, we have determined that there is no consensus for this proposal to move to the next level, and thereby we're returning into the list for further discussion. It is our hope that the author would actually follow up with the community on the mailing list with perhaps an updated version of the proposal or otherwise, depending on what he decides. Thank you very much for the patience, and we will come back at three... Oh, two o'clock please, we'll come back at two o'clock to resume for the third session. Thank you. [applause] 1:48:24 Ernest Byaruhanga: Thank you everybody. Just one or two announcements. One, tomorrow, all the members... Tomorrow is our AGMM and I'd like to urge all members as communicated to you, to register to participate, most importantly to vote during the board election, and on the resolutions that will be tabled during the AGMM. We have a room dedicated for that, it's called the ____ room, right outside. It's open all day, please go in and register yourself to vote. If you do not register, then tomorrow you'll not be allowed to vote. So please go ahead and do that. Thank you. And oh yes, secondly, for those that have the... What are these things...