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Over the past years, the Internet has played a major role in the growth and prosperity of our society in areas of trade, education, health, governmental services, or simply for entertainment. As of the year 2012, access to the Internet is recognised as a basic human right which enables individuals to "exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression" as stipulated by the United Nation Human Right Council.

To ensure sustainable growth of a stable, secure and robust Internet, it is vital that Governments, Civil and Technical societies along with all other stakeholders engage in dialogues and forums regarding the Internet, it's development and related issues on how the Internet should be managed. This is what Internet governance is about.

In line with the above objective, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was held in two phases. The first one took place in Geneva hosted by the Government of Switzerland from 10 to 12 December 2003, and the second one took place in Tunis hosted by the Government of Tunisia, from 16 to 18 November 2005. [more on WSIS].

One of the outcomes of the last meeting provided a definition of Internet Governance as follows: '' Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.'' (WGIG 2005)

 IG issues broadly cover:

  • Open access to governance processes;
  • Network security and stability;
  • Responsible management of critical Internet resources.

There are several organisations involved in the governance of the Internet globally and addressing the above issues. AFRINIC collaborates closely with these global organisations, amongst others, namely:

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Current IPv4 Exhaustion Phase: Phase 2

More Info: IPv4 Exhaustion Phases

13 January 2020: AFRINIC enters IPv4 Exhaustion Soft-landing Phase 2

19 August 2019: AFRINIC approaches IPv4 Exhaustion, Soft-landing Phase 2

 

Introduction

Since 2005, AFRINIC has been managing a pool of Internet Number Resources and delegating them to organisations that could justify the need to receive the resources. The management of the resources is done in accordance with resource policies and these policies are consolidated in the policy manual. IPv4 resources are scarce resources and in 2011, the AFRINIC community proposed and supported the IPv4 Soft Landing policy to address the scarcity of IPv4 in the AFRINIC service region. This policy aim is to guide AFRINIC membership regarding the exhaustion of AFRINIC's IPv4 address space, ensure better management of the IPv4 pool in the scarcity period for a smooth transition to IPv6. This page aims to inform the Community about the phases involved in the exhaustion of IPv4 in the AFRINIC region, as well as an overview of the procedures of handling requests during the phases of exhaustion.

 

Background and Information

In February 2011, the IANA (now known as Public Technical Identifiers - PTI) allocated two large blocks of IPv4 address space to APNIC, causing the global IPv4 pool to deplete to a critically low level. This triggered the "Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space". Each RIR then received one /8 each, which is around 16.8 million IPv4 addresses, depleting IANA's pool of available IPv4 address space and setting the ball rolling for global IPv4 exhaustion.

As of 24 September 2015, four of the five RIRs - APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC and the RIPE NCC - have exhausted their free pools of IPv4 and are already allocating IPv4 address space from the final /8 they received from the IANA. IPv4 address space that is being allocated from the last /8 is distributed according to special regional policies developed by each RIR community.

Organisations that are members of these four RIRs are unable to obtain large amounts of IPv4 address space to cover their actual needs. They can obtain a one-time small allocation to ensure network continuity while deploying IPv6 networks. Existing and emerging networks in these regions face scalability issues unless they deploy IPv6 in order to ensure long-term network growth and global connectivity.

  • On 16 January 2017, AFRINIC announced that it is approaching Stage 1 of its IPv4 Exhaustion process.
  • On 31st March 2017, AFRINIC announced the start of Phase 1 of the Soft-landing policy for IPv4 Exhaustion.
  • On 19th August 2019, AFRINIC announced that it is approaching Phase 2 of the Soft-landing policy for IPv4 Exhaustion

 

IPv4 Exhaustion Phases

During the Exhaustion Phase, the following allocation and assignment guidelines are applicable. They apply to both LIRs and End Users, and to all IPv4 address, space allocated, assigned, or otherwise managed by AFRINIC during the transition to and after the beginning of the Exhaustion Phase, regardless of whether or not such IPv4 address space is a part of the Final /8. The exhaustion phase is divided into two parts: Phase 1 and Phase 2

 

 Phase Description
Current (at the time the soft-landing policy was ratified) AFRINIC has IPv4 address space available in its free pool. It can assign IPv4 address space to its members according to justified need as documented in the current policy. AFRINIC has transitioned past this phase
Phase 1 - AFRINIC has transitioned to this phase since 31 March 2017

AFRINIC will enter Phase 1 when an otherwise valid request for IPv4 address space from an LIR or end-user to AFRINIC either:(a) cannot be fulfilled with the IPv4 address space available in the AFRINIC pool (with the exception of the final /8), or(b) can be fulfilled, but would leave the AFRINIC IPv4 address pool empty (with the exception of the final /8).
Phase 2 - AFRINIC has not yet reached this phase

Phase 2 begins when AFRINIC has no more than one /11 of non-reserved IPv4 space available in the final /8.

 

 

Phase 1

This phase started on the 31st of March 2017. AFRINIC approved an IPv4 resource request that could not be fulfilled from the IPv4 address space available in the AFRINIC pool (with the exception of the final /8), triggering Phase 1 of IPv4 Exhaustion. Phase 1 shall end when there is no more than a /11 IPv4 block available in our pool. An aggregated /11 IPv4 prefix has been identified in the AFRINIC available pool and the inventory is being monitored during Phase 1.

Request Handling

Applications are submitted in AFRINIC tickets and are processed on a first-come, first-served basis by the AFRINIC Hostmasters in the Members Services Team. Complete applications will proceed to evaluation while Incomplete applications will be dealt on a case to case basis with the registrants/applicants until such time that all information has been provided and they are considered 'complete'.

Complete requests are evaluated by an AFRINIC Hostmaster, peer-reviewed by another Hostmaster and subject to final approval by the Registration Services Manager. To ensure fairness, final approval will be batched conducted once a week - on Friday. Should Friday be a public holiday, approvals will be done on Thursday.

Final approval will be conducted as follows:-

  1. The pre-approved list of tickets is sorted by the date it became a complete application, from oldest to newest
  2. Approval will be done on the oldest ticket, resource reserved and an invoice generated.
  3. The approved IPv4 prefix will be reserved for up to 45 days, awaiting the payment of invoice. For new membership applications, the duly filled and signed Registration Service Agreement(RSA) must also be sent to AFRINIC within the same 45 days. If the payment and the RSA are not received within 45 days, the prefix will return to the available status in the AFRINIC inventory and the applicant will need to submit a new request.
  4. Aggregation is not mandatory - the applicants may be offered multiple prefixes that sum up to the number of IP addresses approved. For example, an organisation requesting a /17 IPv4 may receive more than one prefix, the combined total of which is equivalent to a /17 IPv4, thus satisfying the member's request with multiple IP blocks.
  5. If an application on the pre-approved list cannot be satisfied in full, the applicant will have the option of either getting an amount of IPv4 addresses that are as close as possible to the requested block or receive up to a /22 from the /11 earmarked for Phase 2, when the latter is triggered.

When AFRINIC has reached an inventory of only the /11 IPv4 prefix earmarked for Phase 2(Reserved space is excluded), Phase 2 of IPv4 Exhaustion as per the soft-landing policy shall be triggered.

Evaluation Criteria

  • Applications will be evaluated based on Section 5.4 of our CPM
  • All members requesting for resources should be compliant to the Contractual Obligation Check(CoC)
  • The maximum IPv4 block which can be requested is a /13.
  • Members requesting for additional IP block must ensure that at least 90% of all IP space delegated to them by AFRINIC is used efficiently.

 

Phase 2

This phase will begin when no more than a /11 of non-reserved space is available in the Final /8. The minimum allocation/assignment size will be /24, and the maximum will be /22 per allocation/assignment

Request Handling

Applications are submitted in AFRINIC tickets and are processed on a first-come, first-served basis by the AFRINIC Hostmasters in the Members Services Team. Complete applications will proceed to evaluation while Incomplete applications will be dealt on a case to case basis with the registrants/applicants until such time that all information has been provided and they are considered 'complete'

Evaluation Criteria

  • Applications will be evaluated based on Section 5.4 of our CPM
  • All members requesting for resources should be compliant to the Contractual Obligation Check(CoC)
  • The minimum allocation/assignment size will be /24, and the maximum will be /22 per allocation/assignment
  • Members requesting for additional IP block must ensure that at least 90% of all IP space delegated to them by AFRINIC is used efficiently.

 

IPv4 Exhaustion Statistics

An overview of AFRINIC's IPv4 allocations can be found here. You can also view the IPv4 prefixes currently available in our inventory here (Note that the /11 is reserved for Phase 2 of the IPv4 Exhaustion). This data is updated daily.

 

What happens after the /11 IPv4 prefix in Phase 2 is exhausted?

As per section 5.4.7.2 If the reserved /12 (this prefix was reserved out of 102/8 when Phase 1 was triggered) remains unused by the time the remaining available space has been allocated, the /12 will be returned to the AFRINIC pool for distribution under the conditions of the phase 2 of the soft landing policy.

 

More Information: 

 

Related News Items:

 

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