AfriNIC-6 Public Policy Meeting

We had our 6th public policy meeting in Abuja (Nigeria) from the 28th April to 4th May 2007. The main focus of this meeting was the IPv4 address exhaustion and what can be done by the community to address issues being raised by this exhaustion. As an incentive for greater IPv6 take-up and usage within Africa, a new fee schedule was approved for IPv6 Membership fees. Also, a 50% discount has been proposed to universities and research networks on set-up and annual membership fees for IPv4 allocation/Assignment with one requirement being for them to have an IPv6 migration plan and get a their own block from AfriNIC.

 

Other outcomes of this meeting were the setting up of Birds of Feather sessions on IPv4 exhaustion, anti-spam and the Policy Development Process.

Although a large proportion of the meeting was dedicated to discussions on six proposed policies. Three policies reached consensus, two were withdrawn and one did not reach consensus and the discussion will continue on the policy mailing list (rpd@afrinic.net). It was also the opportunity for us to use the plenary to update of the community on our activities as well as our plan for the remaining of 2007.

The meeting was preceded by 5 days AFNOG workshop and two days of hands-on IPv6 training which was attended by 50 delegates. The training was used to train African trainers to whom AfriNIC will have recourse to for future IPv6 training in the region.

The overall event was attended by nearly 200 delegates from over 40 different countries. The largest proportion of attendees were from telecom operators (inc. ISPs) followed by Education Networks and governments, giving an indication of the importance that all stakeholders are now giving to the role of AfriNIC and the Internet Number Resources.

 

Next Meeting - AfriNIC-7

The next AfriNIC meeting, AfriNIC-7, is planned for 24th - 28th Sept 2007 in Durban, South Africa. More details can be found at:
http://www.afrinic.net/afrinic-7

 

ICONS

AfriNIC joined ICONS, the Internet Community of Online Network Specialists, which is an initiative from APNIC. ICONS is a community site where network operation experience and knowledge can be shared, and events happening in the Internet operators community can be promoted. (http://icons.afrinic.net).

 

Online Member Survey

The first online member survey was carried out in February 2007. 24 people responded to the survey. All of them were members of AfriNIC. The main outcome was the need to revise the website navigability and meeting format.

 

Policies

Three policies have recently been implemented at AfriNIC:

1. IPv6 Provider Independent (PI) Assignment for End-Sites
2. Change IPv6 HD ratio from 0.80 to 0.94
3. Proposal to change the allocation and assignment period to 12 months

There currently have four policies which are being discussed within our region and these will be presented at our next meeting, AfriNIC-7 in Durban.

 

Closure of LIR

We started closure of members that are in violation of the AfriNIC RSA, especially those in bad financial standing. We also completed the initial phase of the ERX  for IPv4 PI addresses from RIPE NCC.

 

Collaboration with other organisations

An MoU has been signed with the Africa Top Level Domains (AfTLD) to optimise the collaboration between the two organisations with regards to joint capacity building activities as well as to increase the awareness of Internet related issues within the continent.

Contact: press@afrinic.net

 

 

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Periodic bulletin of LACNIC
Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry

Year 2 / Number 5 / september 2007

Responsible Publisher: Raúl Echeberría