Open Mic
 



00:02 Ernest Byaruhanga: Yes, Andrew. You have a comment? 

00:03 Andrew Alston: Yeah, for the open mic, if we have begun with the open mic or should I wait? 

00:09 Ernest Byaruhanga: I believe we have begun. The open mic is open.

00:13 Andrew Alston: Okay. I want to appeal to this community to look very closely at transfer policies, and whether or not we need one and when it's going to come. At this point, I've avoided just writing a policy and sticking it out there. I think there needs to be some discussion on the list about this. The reality is that as Madhvi pointed out, they've got situations where legacy holders within the continent want to transfer to other African organizations as one particular case. At this point, while there's lots of space, I don't see really African LIRs necessarily transferring to other LIRs, but the day is coming. It will arrive. It's arrived in Aron. It's arrived in LACNIC. It's arrived in APNIC, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera and whether we like it or not, it will be upon us. I would rather not see a situation where this community finds itself suddenly scrambling to create a policy at the last minute once the space is finally depreciated.

01:36 Andrew Alston: And it's very well and good to say that our space may last us 10 more years, but we don't know that. It takes one really large operator or one really large cellular network to announce that they're going to remove network address translation and the pool can disappear. I'll give you an example. If MTN Nigeria, today, were to remove network address translation, there would not be a single IP left in the pool. It would be gone. And by the current policies and by the current situation where we do not force anyone to net, and I believe that's a good thing. This could come overnight, and when it does, where will we be sitting without that transfer policy? The reality is, is that the other thing is in those days, when that eventually arrives, we have to realize, whether we like it or not, that there is a value to IP addresses and I'll be talking about this a lot more in my presentation tomorrow, about the actual value of IPs. But just to give you some figures, which I think are important to consider when you ask yourself whether or not we need to actually do something to formalize this before chaos erupts.

03:00 Andrew Alston: AFRINIC is currently sitting with 2.71 /8s published figure. At current secondary market value, that has a value of $595 million. Every /16 out there on the secondary market is valued at $800,000. That's the current figures that I've seen out there. Now, we can wait until we're in a situation where people are gonna transfer their space between each other whether we like it or not. With those kinds of number in play, people are gonna do it. We can sit and bury our heads in the sand, or we can write policy to control it and formalize it in the same way that Aaron and Wright do, both of whom, I might point out are now publishing lists of approved IP brokers. I am not pushing for a situation to transfer space off the continent, but I'm saying that inside the continent, we need to deal with this. We need to allow a situation where people can transfer their space so long as it remains on the continent at wall and we need to formalize it. So I appeal to this community to please give serious thought to this issue, add your comments, add your thoughts on the mailing list and let's have a discussion. It may take us a while to come to a policy that we have consensus on, but the debates needs to happen. Thanks.

04:31 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you, Alan... I mean, Andrew. I just want to get it clear, because the example you gave sounds like somebody that actually need to be... An organization that actually need to be within the continent with just MTN, for instance, which you used. So they go off NAT. It means they didn't want public IPs.

05:06 Andrew Alston: Correct. And if you look at their subscriber count and their 3G and HSDPA user base in Nigeria alone, the population that is connected to their network that is currently being NATed is larger than the number of IPs we currently have available.

05:24 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah. So you're suggesting that we encourage inter IR transfer for them to be able to get...

05:32 Andrew Alston: No. What I'm suggesting is, is that in the event that our space is gone, which could happen very quickly, we need to have mechanisms in place within the African continent, from African company to African company, to be allowed to transfer space from those who no longer need it to those who want so that we're not trying to return space and then have it allocated out again. There needs to be a situation where legacy holders in Africa who are sitting on vast amounts of space, if they want to transfer it to some other member, they should be able to do so. Well, perhaps not, perhaps not. But, that needs to be a debate, I'm not suggesting we encourage anything, I'm saying that this issue needs to be looked at, it needs to be debated from a bottom-up perspective, as is, what is the process in this community and we need to find a way forward before we enter chaos.

06:33 Seun Ojedeji: Yes, thank you very much for that comment, Andrew. Sounds like inter-country transfer to me. Intra-country, yeah, yeah, intra, yeah. Okay, so I will call on, I think Professor Nii wanted... Was trying to come up? Oh, okay.

07:12 Nii Quaynor: I just wanted to know whether you've reached open mic, that's all.

07:17 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you very much, Prof, I think we should have formalized that. Yeah, so by the power vested in me because of our recent election, by the power vested to me, my Co-Chair, we declare the open mic, the floor open for open mic, yeah. Alright, if there are any comments? So, we use the front and the last, the back mic. The front and the back one. Okay, please go ahead, Professor.

07:51 Nii Quaynor: Yeah, thank you very much Co-Chairs and congratulations for your success.

07:56 Ernest Byaruhanga: Thank you, sir.

07:57 Nii Quaynor: And we hope you do good things for the community. This week, the council of elders had an opportunity to share a meeting with the board. And they presented a statement to the board, and they also promised to share it to the community, so since none of them is around, I am left with the challenge of being the one to read it to you. So, if that is okay, I'll go through it. The statement read something like this: The council of elders is pleased to present at the 10th Anniversary and participate in activities of AFRINIC and to attend the policy discussions. We first, like to congratulate the AFRINIC community for successfully establishing a normal registry for Africa...

09:00 Andrew Alston: Point of order, I don't think this is an issue of policy, this is not PDP related and point of order. Sorry, the September the 8th year open mic, this is not a PDP issue.

09:17 Seun Ojedeji: Excuse me, Andrew, thank you very much for that observation. I don't know what you're... I don't know what... This is open mic to actually raise issues or say anything.

[background conversation]

09:36 Seun Ojedeji: Excuse me, Andrew, has the statement been read completely for you to have determined that it's not related to PDP? 

09:48 Andrew Alston: The statement has a PDP review to myself and others, and I can categorically state, it does not relate to the PDP and I believe...

09:57 Seun Ojedeji: Andrew, if I may ask, are you speaking on behalf of yourself or you're speaking on behalf of the board? 

10:05 Andrew Alston: As myself an objective to something that I know is not PDP related and I urge the Chair to confirm with Dr. Quaynor whether or not this is PDP related before you allow it to continue.

10:16 Seun Ojedeji: Okay, thank you Andrew. Point of order, please. Before we proceed, you want a follow up on this? Okay.

10:26 Nii Quaynor: Thank you. I think what had happened is that PDP is over, so PDP Chair should leave, both Chairs should come and then we do open mic... General open mic.

10:38 Seun Ojedeji: No, no, no. The open mic we are having right now is PDP related and we have no problem with hearing the statement if especially if it's PDP related. We won't know if it's PDP related or not until it is completely read. So, in view of that... Just a minute, let me consult with my Co-Chair.

[background conversation]

11:21 Seun Ojedeji: Alright, Andrew, I believe you know the process to actually resolving conflict within the PDP. If you could follow that process, we will take note of that. However, at this junction, we'll like Professor Nii to continue with his statement. After the reading of the statement, anyone can come on the floor to actually say it is not PDP related or it is PDP related or make any other further comments. Professor Nii, kindly continue.

11:56 Nii Quaynor: Okay, I can speak at any time, and you can object at anytime, but I can speak. And you can accept it or not accept it, but I can speak. However, what I've decided is that, if we can be that emotional about ourselves, then perhaps I need not speak. I will choose a different time to speak and at that time I will also be open to the emotional. But what I've managed to arrange with the CEO is that before the AGM, we should have an open mic. In that case, I'll hold back, but if you're gonna have your open mic after, then I'll speak now.

13:03 Seun Ojedeji: Professor Nii, this is open mic for PDP. If we have told you that you can speak now, we're not postponing our open mic until before AGM tomorrow. Maybe the organizers or the CEO could decide to add another item that has to do with open mic but it wouldn't be related to... I won't be the Chair at that point in time.

13:28 Nii Quaynor: I think I gave you that option. I said, I can hold back now because I've consulted and we may find some other way, and so I'm willing to hold back for that other way. But I'm also giving you an advice, if in your simple PDP discussions we can jump up and down that way, my advice to you is that it is not a very good approach and it will polarize your organization and the successful union we've created over a decade will begin to have challenges. So, I end my statement here and then I'll work with the senior [14:11] ____.

[background conversation]

14:16 Boubakar: Yes, Boubakar WACREN. Well, maybe it's... I'm consulting the wrong document or... Because, what I see here for the agenda for tomorrow, I don't see open mic there, so but maybe the document I have is not the right one. This is the one on the internet, on the website, or if you can amend the agenda tomorrow to include that item. Thank you.

[background conversation]

14:56 Sunday Folayan: Seun, May I? Thank you very much. This is our community. If there're issues that are so burning that would require us to have an open mic, which is not provided for either two when we made the agenda for the PDP. Definitely, it is inappropriate to have open mic that is general discussed specifically within the PDP. What I want to propose as a middle ground is that if we can finish open mic for PDP within 15-20 minutes, we should be able to provide for open mic general chaired by the Chair of the board to listen to issues that may be burning, because the AGMM tomorrow has a very, very tight agenda and we should not for expediency throw away babies with the bathwater. So my middle ground is we make time after this and we convene a general open mic accommodate it within the program today. Thank you.

[applause]

16:41 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you very much, Sunday. So we'll continue with open mic for PDP, anyone can come up to give their comment as it relates to PDP. And we'll close formally, then we can have any other thing after that. So, Tamon? 

17:00 Mukom Tamon: Yes, my name is Mukom Tamon, I work for AFRINIC, but I'm not speaking as a staff of AFRINIC. My comment goes to the suggestion about Andrew, about the need to discuss a transfer policy of sorts. I would just like to say here that I think people are motivated more by fear and loss than by gain and investment. Every single time there's been a policy or a proposal that borders on this issue, I think the reason it tends to fail is that people are not reassured that it isn't some mechanism to drain the continent of resources that we believe are meant for the development of the internet in the country. So whatever these discussions we're having, it will help us a lot, if you focus on really, detailing on how do we assure people that we could put in place the right checks and balances to make sure that it doesn't become an avenue. We don't put a proposal in place that becomes an avenue, where resources that are meant for the development of the internet on this continent are drained. Thank you.

18:09 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you. Okay, Madam Mary.

18:19 Mary Uduma: Okay, thank you, my name is Mary Uduma and I'm from NiRA CCTLD, and we are supervised by the government somehow, not too much. My comment here is about the participation of government in the policy development in our continent. You realize that the government in our continent is the highest spender and they are the ones that manage the universities, they are the owners of the universities we have. They have the... They also have their IPs for the... Now that the e-governance is growing, so I don't know whether there's a place for the government, whether there's a committee, maybe there is. I don't know whether there is something like that that would be... That the government are part of this PDP. At the time in Nigeria, the regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission, was proposing to have a bulk of IP to redistribute in the country, register them. So I don't know whether such has been considered in the PDP or in AFRINIC. So, what I'm proposing is that if there's... Just like ICANN has GAC, so something like that, if it's not already existing. But they should be part of this policy development and I think it will help us. Moreover, because of the region we belong to. Thank you.

20:12 Ernest Byaruhanga: Thank you Mary. And yeah, we already have active engagements with the governments and we have... We had actually the African Government Working Group meeting the other day, although due to scheduling issues we did not get the participation that we wanted, but we always have this AFGWG, the Government Working Group session at every... At each of our meetings for the past several years, and we try to reach out to the stakeholders that we think should be there. Regulators and government trips to come and be part of it. Regarding the policy development process and the government participation to it, our policy development process, it's open, it's transparent, and we as much as possible try to reach out to everybody to come and participate to it. Whether you are government or a student, for as long as you are involved in anything to do with internet number resource management, it's an open process and governments can freely participate to it. So, we have tried to reach out to them and our PDP is open and governments and everybody else is welcome to come and participate.

21:26 Mary Uduma: So, excuse me. So in that case, if the government of Nigeria proposes that they take a bulk of IPs and redistribute within Nigeria, so that they will know who has what because of the experiences we have had. First, profiling of traffic from Nigeria. Secondly, a question of blackout of our universities' IPs because it's been compromise somehow somewhere. So would such proposal, can it be considered at the PDP? Thank you.

22:10 Ernest Byaruhanga: Any proposal is welcome. Our policies of internet number resource distribution are mainly best around demonstrated need. Right now, I do not think there is any provision that can allow or let a government come and get a block of IP addresses just to have them around for possible unforeseen needs. The policies right now only allow for getting IP addresses based on demonstrated needs. You must need those IP addresses to use them within a period of 12 months. So if you think... Like I said, we have an open policy development process and if you think that any of the policies do not meet your exact requirement, then feel free to come through the PDP again and propose something that you think meets your requirements. It will go through the community and if the community supports it, just like you saw today and there's consensus on it, it will perhaps get ratified and implemented. But again, whatever requirement you have, if there's no policy that meets it, then you'll have to take it through the policy development process, which is already an open process. And you'll look for the community support on it.

23:32 Mike Silber: Ernest, if I can possibly just pick up on your response because I think you've touched on the very key issues. I'm Mike Silber. I think the critical thing is that governments sometimes struggle to become members of membership-based organizations because they are then put in the same room and given the same rights and obligations as private sector organizations, companies and individuals, and governments tend to struggle with it. So, Mary's suggestion is something that, for example, has been followed in Korea, where IP address allocations within Korea are attended to by government mandated LIR. But the LIR is the member of APNIC, it's not the government that's a member, because the government that... It wouldn't be applicable for a government to then be a member just because governments tend not to work in that manner.

24:32 Mike Silber: Now, I think all of us would encourage, given that we're a multi-stakeholder organization, we encourage governments to become more involved and more appropriate, but as you pointed out, we have a government working group. I think revitalizing that would be an excellent place to start, and if that's not working, to try and understand from governments why that's not working, so that we can look at improvements.

24:57 Mary Uduma: Thank you.



25:00 Dewole Ajao: Thank you. Hi, my name is Dewole. I'm from the Nigeria ICT forum. At the risk of drawing out the never-ending argument on out-of-region IP address usage, I was thinking that there might be a way to work out some sort of short-term assignments, if there really is a market for these IP addresses, and we have people in the region who have decided, for whatever reasons, not to start using them. Then we could actually let them out to people who are setting up shell corporations for short-terms and then take them back when the people within the region are ready to use them. Thank you.

[laughter]

25:42 Seun Ojedeji: That's interesting. Thank you very much, Dewole.

[background conversation]

25:47 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah. [chuckle] Owen, please go ahead.

25:53 Owen DeLong: Owen DeLong ARIN AC Akamai. To clarify some of the points that Mike made, the situation in Korea and several other nations within the APNIC region, China also has an NIR, JPNIC is an NIR for Japan. These are not LIRs, they're NIRs, they're National Internet Registries, and they administer space under APNIC policies, under contract with APNIC. It's kind of unique to the APNIC region. If people wanted to implement something like this here... That here, it certainly could be done through the policy process and some other processes, but it would have to go through the policy process, it would have to be ratified by the community. Well, I realize the governments struggle with having to face an actually democratic process and then struggles with that more than my own, which claims to be a democracy at times. The reality is, they should learn to accept it.

[laughter]

27:07 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you.

27:09 Andrew Alston: I wanted to make some more comments on the transfers and also on another issue that I've found. Firstly, on the transfer stuff that I was talking about earlier, Mukom referred to the fear of space flowing off the continent. This is why I believe that we need to tackle intra-Africa transfer policies first, baby steps, one step at a time. Once we have a policy like that and it is working and we're all happy with it, and we can see the progress, then perhaps we can start talking about intra-RIR transfers, which allow for stuff to go off the continent. But we need to concentrate in-house first. I must say, I love what my Nigerian friend there said, about short-term leases. So, while I don't believe in making money off IP addresses, just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, I'm gonna add some math to this game.

28:12 Andrew Alston: So, you can currently lease IPs elsewhere in the world, if you choose to, at a rate of between $2 and $4 a month is the rate that I've seen per IP. So, if you've got a /16 and feel like going and leasing it out to your neighbour down the road, well that's 65,000 IPs multiplied by, let's say two because... Well, let's say two because we're being nice, that'll give you a $125,000 every month that you can sit on. And I don't know about you, but, well, I don't earn that much money, so that would be plenty for me. So, yeah, it's something to consider, there is nothing wrong with enterprising Africans making money. Not saying I advocate for it, but it's just something to be debated.

29:07 Andrew Alston: The other thing I wanted to say, with regards to the more serious note and the legitimate use of IPs. In the course of the last couple of years, I've had the opportunity to work with many, many organizations as regards their IP space. And what I found is, if you look at the utilizations specified inside AFRINIC and inside whois databases and on the applications, I found a very scary thing. See, engineers can be a little bit lazy at times. So, what they do when they're allocating point-to-points is they'll have a /24 and they'll allocate a point-to-point at the top of it, they'll allocate a point-to-point in the middle of it, they'll allocate a point-to-point at the end of it, and then they'll declare it utilized. And in an analysis that I did recently on another organization I found that less than 50% of their actual space, which was assigned in whois, was actually utilized.

30:20 Andrew Alston: And I think, I don't know how to address that fire policy, because it's almost impossible to verify how somebody's actually using that. If they're claiming loads and loads of point-to-points in a /24 how do you know if they're telling the truth or not? If they're claiming a DHCP segment, how do you know? DHCP leasers... The lease file might show you active leases, that doesn't mean that the device is on. If your lease time is eight hours and you turn your device on, your lease is still active. So how do you actually verify it? But I have serious doubts as to whether or not the IPs that are actually allocated out there at the moment are used anywhere close to their fullest extent. And I really think this is something that we need to look at.

31:10 Andrew Alston: At the same time, I argue that we need to increase our IPv4 burn rate. Currently we've burnt through a /10 in I believe the last year. Single /10, that's about 3.5 million IPs if my math is right. If you look we've got 2.71 available, which if my math is right, is about 45 million IPs. That puts us into the decades mark, the decades mark, before we get rid of our V4. And I've had vendors come to me recently, big vendors, we're talking about top three routing vendors which I cannot name for obvious reasons but do your own deductions, who've said, "You don't need those V6 features, you've got lots of V4." AFRINIC's got lots of V4. Are we going to continue to become a dumping ground for Legacy Hardware? And if you think that the Legacy Hardware isn't out there, I'll point to the fact that right now there are metro Ethernet switches being produced by a top-tier vendor. And the top-tier vendor has stated, "There will be no LVP6 in those devices. There will be no RSVP6." They are still producing them, they are still selling them. The longer the V4 space remains out there, the more we hurt ourselves, the more we become a dumping ground, the more the rest of the world thinks they can con us into buying their Legacy equipment. That has to stop.

32:49 Andrew Alston: To stop that, we have to increase the allocation rates. And unfortunately what I've found from this community is that any attempt to increase those allocation rates, again as Mukom said, has been met with fear and paranoia. I point to the academic IPv4 policy, which was put before this community, and I still believe it would have been a huge benefit to the institutions who are sitting out there with 20,000 students hiding behind two IP addresses. That's all they've got, why? Either the institution is so broke that they can't afford to go and get more space, or alternatively they don't know any better. We need to educate, we need to make the space available, and we need potentially for institutions like that to even make it cheaper. Here's another bizarre idea: 2.71 /8s. If we were to take a single /8... And this is just an idea I'm not advocating for it, let me be clear... Take a single /8, sell it. We generate 185 million dollars.

34:02 Andrew Alston: At that point, we take that 185 million, we stick it in a high-interest bank account. That will generate more than double AFRINIC's current revenue stream. We will have no need to charge Africans for African blocks. There will be no need to charge people for training. We could invest half that money and still cover our current revenue stream. Invest that money into promoting V6, getting this continent off the Legacy V4, which the world seems to want to tie us to. So, these are my thoughts.

34:44 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you Andrew, those are very quite provoking ones, I hope we are all thinking about it. Next, Prof, yes.

34:55 Nii Quaynor: Mr. Chairman, I wish to suggest that you put a clock up there so we time ourselves down, so we can be much more efficient in capturing the viewpoints of the entire community. I just wanted to make a caution: The more I hear these discussions about selling number resources, leasing number resources and all, the more I get worried. Because we are supposed to be a public interest organization, we are supposed to be helping operators expand their network to serve people from our region. And all we seem to think about is interest of people who want to get revenue as opposed to interest of people who want to serve their citizens. And as a public interest company doing bottom-up type of things, I really, really get worried that accountability of even our policy process must be questioned. Because if the motive of the whole policy process is to get 180 million for AFRINIC, I think is too much. We should come down to Earth.

36:04 Nii Quaynor: If that's what you want to do, then lets share the numbers and we go home. Everybody has some in their country and then they do what they have to do. Then we compete along the whole continent. But we are not that. We are a regional registry, we have specific approaches, specific procedures and objectives and practices, and we should follow those. We should really follow that and try to serve the community, not our interests. So I'm very concerned about that.

36:33 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you very much Professor Nii. Yeah, it'll be Mark, but let's try to be as brief as much as possible. Apologies for not repeating this early enough, but please let's be brief. One, two minutes is fine. Mark, please.

36:51 Mark Elkins: Mark Elkins. A few years ago while we were in Tanzania at a meeting, there was a proposal, PDP proposal on the table where we would look at depleting our stock a little bit by one /8. Unfortunately we need now sort of put a damper on that, but we were looking... There was a policy where we would take one /8 and charge... And literally sell it to entities out of the region. The aim of that was so that we would actually run out a little bit faster than we are at the moment because sitting on a stockpile of IPv4 addresses is not a very healthy thing. And we would sell those IP addresses in that /8 at a higher rate than normal, with a higher rate than normal per year, etcetera. And the money from that would help fund more development on the IPv6 deployment in Africa. I'm curious... And if we only did one /8 we'd still have over a whole /8 one-and-three-quarters left anyway, which according to what people are saying will still last another two years or so. And in reasonable, we don't want to hold onto this stuff because it's attracting bad people. On the other hand, by selling sort of one off, like I said, it will help things.

38:35 Seun Ojedeji: Two minutes. Two minutes, Mark, round up.

38:36 Seun Ojedeji: Okay. So I'm just wondering what the feeling of the room would be to perhaps dispose of one of our /8s so that we can help fill the coffers a bit of AFRINIC for the next few years. I just want to see what the vibe of the room is. Whether we should look at bringing Max policy back in. Thank you.

38:58 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you very much. So this is how it's gonna happen, if you guys exceed two minutes, I'm gonna... We're gonna break your speech so that you can just round up. Thank you very much. Front please.

39:15 Benjamin Eshun: Yes. Chairman please, I just have a simple question. It won't take about very long. What is the definition of an open-mic on the PDP process? Because I'm starting to hear things that are not really related to the PDP process and other things. So I'm not sure.

39:28 Seun Ojedeji: Yes.

[background conversation]

39:42 Seun Ojedeji: So you're asking what is the purpose of the open-mic on the PDP? The definition? So the definition, well, I don't know whether I would call it a definition. But the purpose of the open-mic is actually to brainstorm on the entire PDP meeting that we just had. Especially I would have also expect that one of the things that we would be talking about as a open-mic is in relation to the staff implementation reports, trying to suggest way forward, trying to determine what are the things that we should do, trying to encourage ourselves on what policy that we need to write or what different ways we need to engage our communities more. And I think we have been hearing some of those. There was suggestion about government and getting government back in to contribute. There was suggestion about raising a policy to actually generate more funds, so these are some of the things that are PDP related.

40:54 Seun Ojedeji: But again, I have to also agree that it can also be organizational related, but again it's still talking about policy. However, I will like to still encourage people to talk more specific about the policy stuff and the policy... I would really like to hear more about what Madhvi presented. If we can have more comments about it, it would be good. But again, we are not limited by that and we can always go beyond that scope. So there's really no definition but there's just an intent. That is the intent of the PDP open-mic. Thank you.

41:42 Benjamin Eshun: So we have the behind mic.

41:46 Emmanuel Adjovi: Thank you. Emmanuel Adjovi in French.

[French]

41:53 Emmanuel Adjovi: I think that the debate led so far has become really good, and we have the habit to go and just submit with the register, and we also available of ICANN. When we discuss this issue we see how this works but in the case of AFRINIC's, we can say that this is not a good debate because there is a real conflict of interest. I see that AFRINIC shall implement rules. I saw some resolution, and the first resolution was taken, it shall be about conflict of interest. So, it is not normal to see this, we notice that there are some intervention from here and there. I think there is an ethical problem here. We shall not have this toxic debate for the organization. The resolution that I would like to propose shall be about conflict of interest, and I thank you very much.

43:22 Barry Macharia: I request anybody who has a comment, do it now 'cause the floor is closed.

43:28 Andrew Alston: We've got 'til 6 o'clock by the agenda.

43:31 Barry Macharia: No, not. You were on the floor, Andrew. You were on the floor already. Anybody who wants to give a comment, join the line because we are closing the floor. Okay, Andrew? Please.

43:54 Andrew Alston: Yeah. I want to respond a little bit to the debate about the transfer policy further and what Mark has said, and what Dr. Quaynor has said. The reality is that with 1.71 /8s available after we were to sell one of them if that were to be a policy, that would take over 10 years at current depletion rates to get rid of. In the meantime, we talked about how people want to make money off this. This is not about any individual or any company making money off this. This is about generating funds for AFRINIC to go forward, which will allow Africans, Africans who cannot afford to get IPs at the moment, to be able to access them for free. If AFRINIC had that kind of money, no one would have to pay because we would be generating so much revenue from the banks who have lots of it to pay us interest.

44:52 Andrew Alston: It would be free and open, let the community have the IPs. Why not? What is it hurting us? Why are we holding on to it? Somebody once asked somebody in this room, "What about the IPs off the continent?" And that particular person responded, "It's mine, it's mine, it's mine!" That was the response. By the way, that response came from Dr. Quaynor. I do not believe that space belongs to a person. I believe that space belongs to this community, and let this community have their space as cheap as possible, and this is one way to make that happen.

45:36 Seun Ojedeji: Andrew, actually we need to be frank about what we're saying. I haven't heard anyone say, "It's mine, it's mine, it's mine," on this floor so far. Let's please just address issues and not persons, please. It is very important we take note of that. Professor Nii, I know that you want to follow up but I will really, really ask that if it's really to respond to what Andrew said, can you, sir, please...

46:21 Nii Quaynor: I will respond, you will understand. I think we should work in the public interest. If you have to justify your allocations, do so. If you have to provide information that will enable evaluation of the resources that you want to consume, please do so. When you start discussing things about selling and so on the way it's been discussed, I think we could be running ourselves into a difficult situation. That's all I want to get across.

46:51 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you very much, Professor Nii. Lu? I think it's Lu.

46:57 Lu Han: Lu Han from Kline Innovation, just a couple of my very personal thoughts to the community. The first thing about the financial things. Correct me if I was wrong, I'd basically read through the financial report which was sent by Sunday this morning. A financial report of AFRINIC 2014. From my basic understanding, AFRINIC actually not in bad shape, their cash reserve over one million USD, and last year it's generated over 50,000 USD in cash. Then another thing I want to mention to this community is the last time I was at the RIPE NCC general meeting, RIPE...

47:36 Christian Bope: Chair, point of order, it's now PDP discussion, please. Point of order, it's not PDP discussion.

47:41 Seun Ojedeji: Yeah, Lu, that sounds like discussing the financials and that is actually for the AGM. So maybe tomorrow you can raise this. If you have any other comments in relation to PDP itself, please go ahead.

47:58 Lu Han: Okay, well, to the the policies of... I'm just saying that the field of AFRINIC is a bit high compared to the other regions, but I think it's durable compared to the size of the IP address or allocation which the organization has been received. Consider, let's say if you receive a /10, you'll pay $36,000 and it should be fine. That's it.

48:24 Seun Ojedeji: Thank you very much. I think it was... Yeah. Please go ahead.

48:36 Ali Haji: I'm Ali Haji from the Comores. I don't have that much comment to make. However, I would like to support the comment which were made by Mr.  Adjovi when he said that if we do not privilege the interest... The common interest, it would be difficult. I would like to seize this opportunity to send a short message tomorrow, but the board member shall serve as a model and serve as an example. And of course, there are some personal interests which could be seen from the different ____. I think there is a notion... In this way would be very important.

49:32 Seun Ojedeji: Good wrap up and I think at this point, we could round off this entire session. I'll ask... Okay. I would like to thank you once again for staying with us since morning. Quite a... It's been quite an interesting day for us and we do hope that we will continue this spirit on the mailing list. One of the reasons why we actually spent so much time here is because we actually spend so less time on the mailing list. So please, the more discussion of this issues on the mailing list, the easier we will make sure that we have our tea breaks at the right time and our lunch at the right time at the next public policy meeting. So, on behalf of myself and my Co-Chair, and also, Ernest, we would like to thank you, and we look forward to meeting you at the next BPM. Thank you very much.

[applause]






 

 
 
 

	Open Mic	

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