[kictanet] Fw: [i-network] East African Internet Governance Forum-updates

[McTim]

Walu,

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 10:17 AM, Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> below the updates from the East African Internet Governance Forum in Uganda.
>
> walu.
> Alice: any major\key decisions coming out of the Kampala meeting?


I'm not sure I like the word "decision" in re: any IGF meeting.  While
it is possible that the EAIGF may come up with a consensus set of
recommendations to pass to the global IGF, that body has no decision
making authority.

It's best not to raise any expectations unnecessarily.  Some examples
of this can be found on http://www.eaigf-uganda.blogspot.com/ and in
Mwende's update.

First we have the question: "Does the East African Community (EAC)
need a ccTLD?"  (My answer is "not really", but that is a separate
issue).  What struck me is the urgent need for capacity building when
I read the quote:

“Who wants .EAC and where shall we end up. Next will be .COMESA when
we already have .AFRICA. Why don’t we just strengthen what we have,”

In fact, we do NOT have .africa yet, nor is there any guarantee  that
we will have such a string, so let's not get our hopes up until
.africa is actually in the rootzone file.

Actually, there are two competing proposals to run a .africa registry,
and for the record, I prefer a model that is similar to the PIR
(Public Interest Registry) model which supports (funds) the IETF, ISOC
and other Internet community initiatives.

I'd like to see a private, non-profit body running .africa whereby all
the surplus revenue (after meeting operational requirements) goes to
fund the Af*s organisations. These are AfNOGand
afNOG/AfREN/AfriNIC/etc.  AfNOG and afREN have been reliant on donor
support for part of their budget traditionally.  It would be ideal if
.africa could fully fund these initiatives going forward.

(BTW, we may have a new Af* organisation in the making after the very
successful AfPIF [African Peering and Interconnection Forum] meeting
held over the last 2 days.  It was very unfortunate that both meetings
were held simultaneously, as many would have benefited from attending
both).

Speaking of IXPs, this page:

http://www.diplointernetgovernance.org/profiles/blogs/highlights-of-ongoing-east
 says:

"Recognition of the need for a regional IXP by through harmonization
of regulatory frameworks (licensing requirements and interconnection
guidelines) to facilitate cross-border network operators."

What became clear to me during AfPIF is that the "need" for a regional
peering point has been diminished by our transition from scarcity to
abundance in re: bandwidth.  In addition, we have zero measurements to
tell us that we need a regional peering exchange.

In other words, our world has changed, it's time to change our way of
thinking about it as well.

In general, I think the IGFs should focus more on capacity building
and less on outcomes.  I hope folk aren't too disappointed when the
change they seek via IGF meetings doesn't come to pass via the IGF.

--
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel