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5 April 2017 - The AFRINIC Board has issued the following statement on keeping the Internet open to everyone.

 

AFRINIC believes that the Internet plays a critical role in Africa’s social and economic development. While AFRINIC's core function is to act as the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Africa, we also play a leading role in capacity building and research, and we actively support projects and activities that reinforce the stability, openness and accessibility of the Internet.

The Internet has changed our world for the better. This is particularly true here in Africa, where communities have harnessed the power of the Internet to improve lives, from the remotest corners of our continent to our high-tech cities. While Africa has the lowest Internet penetration rates and one of the largest as-yet unconnected populations in the world, our online economy is growing quickly, largely due to the expansion of mobile Internet technologies in the region.
 

Internet shutdowns makes it difficult for people to communicate with family in distant locations, to conduct business, to send money to friends or relatives in need, to access educational material, and so much more. Unfortunately, Internet shutdowns, as well as access and content restrictions, are becoming more common around the globe. Keeping the Internet open and accessible to everybody at all times is imperative to ensuring that Africa's booming online economy remains viable, that our schools and universities can continue to educate the next generation of Internet users and Internet leaders, and that our rural health workers can continue to get the information they need from the cloud to save lives.
 
AFRINIC is committed to ensuring that the Internet remains open, trusted and secure so that everyone, everywhere can freely access the information and services that they need.

 

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3 April 2017 - On 31st March 2017,AFRINIC has approved a request for IPv4 resources 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.

GUIDANCE FOR MEMBERS

AFRINIC Resource Members are kindly requested to familiarise themselves with the IPv4 Soft Landing policy as described in Section 5.4 of the Consolidated Policy Manual, which can be found here.

In addition to the policy itself, please refer to the following previous communiques:

  • 16 January 2017, available here
  • 30 March 2017, available here

To ensure timely evaluation of all Internet number resource requests, Members are requested to ensure that:

  • They are in good standing (all fees are paid up, and RSA duly signed)
  • Submit complete IPv4 resource requests, including all information needed to verify policy compliance.
  • Make arrangements for AFRINIC staff to check online statistics via screen sharing or similar methods, at a time between 06:00UTC and 11:30am UTC, Monday to Friday (between 10:00 and 15:30 Mauritius time (UTC+4)). 

CHANGES TO POLICIES IN EXHAUSTION PHASE 1

Now that Exhaustion Phase 1 has begun, the current IPv4 policies continue to apply, but certain changes take effect:

  • The minimum IPv4 allocation for LIRs will be /22, and the minimum IPv4 assignment for End User Members will be /24. (section 5.4.3.1).
  • The maximum IPv4 allocation/assignment shall be /13 (section 5.4.3.1).
  • No explicit limit on the number of times an organisation may request additional IPv4 space (section 5.4.4).
  • Allocation/assignment period (planning window) changes from 12 months to 8 months (section 5.4.5).
  • Existing Resource Members are eligible to get additional blocks of IPv4 address space if 90% efficient usage of all resources has been demonstrated (section 5.4.6.1).
  • Use of AFRINIC IPv4 resources outside the AFRINIC service region should be solely in support of connectivity back to the AFRINIC region (section 5.4.6.2).
  • A /12 IPv4 address block will be reserved from the final /8. This /12 IPv4 address block shall be preserved by AFRINIC for future uses, as yet unforeseen (section 5.4.7).

Please see the relevant sections in the Consolidated Policy Manual for more information

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