7 August 2017 - We are pleased to inform you that registration is now open for the AFRINIC-27 Meeting, being held in Lagos Nigeria, from 27 November to 2 December 2017.

You can register online at: https://meeting.afrinic.net/afrinic-27/?option=com_afmeeting&view=login

Updates and News

You can stay informed with updates and the latest news about AFRINIC-27 via our discussion lists, the AFRINIC-27 meeting website (https://meeting.afrinic.net/afrinic-27/) Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/afrinic) and on Twitter (http://twitter.com/afrinic). We are using the hashtags #AFRINIC27, #Lagos, #Nigeria.

Visas

We strongly advise that you start your travel and visa procedures for Nigeria as from now. For more information about travel and visas please see: https://meeting.afrinic.net/afrinic-27/attend/travel-kit

We look forward to seeing you in Nigeria!

AFRINIC CEO Alan Barrett and AFRALO Chair Abdelaziz Hilali signing the MoU

Ebene, Mauritius 28^th June 2017: AFRINIC has signed an MoU with ICANN’s African Regional At-Large Organization (AFRALO) in which both organizations commit to continue working together towards improving Internet development throughout the region. The MoU was signed by AFRINIC CEO Alan Barrett and AFRALO Chair Abdelaziz Hilali at the sidelines of ICANN59 being held in Johannesburg.

In the MoU, AFRINIC and AFRALO agree to continue conducting capacity building events, create awareness and promote regional and global participation for Africa’s Internet stakeholders on matters Internet development.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, AFRINIC CEO lauded the ongoing collaboration between AFRINIC and AFRALO saying that it has provided a broader platform for advancing the case for Internet and development in Africa.

“As our communities and focus areas overlap considerably, it is in our mutual interests to come together to create and share awareness and encourage participation in African and global Internet governance matters,” Mr. Barrett noted.

AFRINIC and AFRALO have collaborated since 2013, when the first MoU was signed. This new MoU will build upon the strong foundations already in place, continuing the commitment to work together and combining efforts for the benefit of the AFRINIC community and the AFRALO At-Large community.

On 1st June 2017, the Board took the following decision with regards to LIR Membership fees and penalties.

1. Invoice all members in the first week of November of the preceding Year
2. The invoice will be dated 1st January of the New Year, but will be due for payment by 31st January of the new year. That is 30 days to process and pay the invoice.
3. The company will give another 28 days moratorium, past the due date, where no penalty will be applied, i.e 28th Feb, giving 60 days to process the invoice and pay it without incurring any penalty.
4. If the invoice is paid on or before 31st March, a penalty of 5% is noted.
5. If the invoice is then paid on or before 30th April, a penalty of 10% is noted
6. If the invoice is then paid on or before 31st May, a penalty of 15% if noted
7. Up to this point, no penalty invoice will be invoiced to the members, so they remain in good standing if they have paid the invoice for the year, even if they have not paid the penalty, so they can vote at the AGMM without any restraint.
8. All penalty invoices are invoiced by 30th June, giving members up to 5 months to pay the penalties.
9. Unpaid penalties by the next billing cycle in November, will be added to the invoice of the next year. However, note that this will count towards any resource requests that expects members to be in good standing.

The billing timeline can be read at https://preview.afrinic.net/membership-cost

31 January 2016 - The AFRINIC Board is required to appoint a Nomination Committee (NomCom) every year.  I hereby call for volunteers from the community to fill three open positions on the 2017 NomCom.

If you are interested in serving on the 2017 NomCom, please send your expression of interest, including a short biography, by email to legal<at>afrinic dot net by Tuesday 14 February 2017 at 20:00 UTC.

The duties of the NomCom, and the elections to be held, are described below.

Election To Be Held

* AFRINIC Board of Directors:

Three Board seats are up for election, to serve three-year terms from July 2017 to June 2019:

- Seat 3 (Indian Ocean), currently held by Kris Seeburn;

- Seat 4 (Central Africa), currently held by Christian D. Bope;

- Seat 8 (Non-geographical), currently held by Andrew Alston.

* Policy Development Working Group:

One PDWG co-chair position is up for election, to serve a two-year term from June 2017 to June 2019.  The seat is currently held by Dewole Ajao.

* Governance Committee:

One Governance Committee position is up for election, to serve a three-year term from January 2018 to December 2020.  The seat is currently held by Abdalla Omari.

* NRO-NC/ASO-AC:

One member of the NRO NC/ASO AC needs to be elected during 2017, to serve a three-year term from January 2018 to December 2020.  The seat is currently held by Douglas Onyango.

Nomcom Composition and Responsibilities

According to Section 9 of the AFRINIC by-laws, a Nominations Committee (NomCom) appointed by the Board must work to ensure that appropriate candidates are nominated to contest for open seats and that all elections are successfully conducted according to current procedures.

The bylaws say that NomCom must have four members, appointed by the Board.  The Board’s practice is to appoint the four members as follows;

- One member selected from within the AFRINIC Board;

- Three members selected by the AFRINIC Board from the community.

In terms of section 9.1 of the Bylaws:

- No candidate for election to the Board may be a member of the NomCom;

- No person domiciled in a region whose Board seat is open for renewal may be a member of the NomCom; this means that the 2017 NomCom may not not include people who reside in the Central Africa or Indian Ocean regions.

Responsibilities of the NomCom are defined in section 9 of the AFRINIC bylaws and include the following:

- Report to the Board and follow guidelines set by the Board;

- Call for candidates for all open positions;

- Prescribe criteria and qualifications for eligibility to stand for election;

- Interview candidates, if appropriate, prior to finalising the slate of candidates;

- Finalise the list of candodates for every election;

- Supervise the conduct of the polls by the Election Committee on election day.

The Board further expects NomCom members to:

- be neutral; to have no interest in the results of the elections;

- be trusted members of the AFRINIC community;

- have good knowledge of the AFRINIC business environment;

- do their best to fulfill their responsibilities.

NomCom members do not receive any remuneration.

AFRINIC staff will provide logistical support to the NomCom throughout their mandate. Such support includes publication of the list of nominees, compilation of comments, mailing list moderation, website update, communication with nominees and other duties pertaining to the roles and responsibilities of the NomCom.

How to Volunteer

If you are interested in serving on the 2017 NomCom, please send your expression of interest, including a short biography, by email to legal<at>afrinic dot net by Tuesday 14 February 2017 at 20:00 UTC.

30 January 2017 - Alan Barrett, AFRINIC CEO, and Sikiru A. Shehu, Dean NiRA Academy, signed an MoU to develop and certify skills in Internet Number Resources Management and IPv6 throughout Nigeria. The signing ceremony took place during the ICANN African Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, in the presence of Sunday Folayan, Chair of the AFRINIC Board, and Göran Marby, CEO ICANN.

AFRINIC is one of only twelve organisations in the world certified by the IPv6 Forum to directly certify engineers. As a valued partner in AFRINIC’s new certi::6 programme, NiRA Academy will administer certification exams locally in Nigeria enabling engineers to complete their certification within one week at an affordable price. Local training will be facilitated by NiRA Academy using AFRINIC's world-class IPv6 training course materials and certified trainers will prepare local engineers for certification under the certi::6 programme.

"AFRINIC has been leading IPv6 capacity building efforts throughout the continent for many years and is proud to partner with NiRA to further reinforce the message that the time to deploy IPv6 is now," said Mr. Barrett. "This partnership comes at a crucial moment in the evolution of the global Internet. Just a few weeks ago, AFRINIC announced that it is nearing Phase 1 of IPv4 Exhaustion. Our pool of IPv4 address space is depleting fast and network operators need to prepare for IPv6 deployment as soon as possible. Partnering with NiRA will ensure that AFRINIC's top-level IPv6 training materials are more accessible to Nigerian engineers, further reinforcing our commitment to capacity building efforts throughout our service region".

More Information:

• Certi::6
  
• AFRINIC Training
• IPv6 Programme
• IPv4 Exhaustion
• NiRA

16 January 2017 - The AFRINIC IPv4 inventory will soon reach a point where the "Current Phase" will end, and "Exhaustion Phase 1" of the IPv4 Soft Landing policy will begin. This is an update on the implementation of the IPv4 Soft Landing policy.

AFRINIC's available inventory of IPv4 space is summarised here, updated daily.

SOFT LANDING POLICY

In 2011, the AFRINIC community passed an "IPv4 Soft Landing" policy to deal with the exhaustion of IPv4 address space.  That policy is currently described in Section 5.4 of the Consolidated Policy Manual. (It was earlier known under the identifier "AFPUB-2010-v4-005" as archived here).

The soft landing policy defines several phases for exhaustion of the IPv4 address space: the "Current Phase", "Exhaustion Phase 1", and "Exhaustion Phase 2".  These phases begin and end according to criteria defined in the policy, based on the amount of address space remaining in AFRINIC's IPv4 pool.

FINAL /8

The following definition of the "Final /8" appears in section 5.4.1 of the CPM:

The Final /8 block of IPv4 address space, or "Final /8", is the /8 block of IPv4 address space that has been allocated by the IANA to AFRINIC in terms of section 2.2 C of the Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space at the time of exhaustion of the IANA pool of IPv4 address space.

Based on that definition, the "Final /8" is the IPv4 address block 102.0.0.0/8, which was allocated by the IANA to AFRINIC on 3 February 2011 (NRO news article) (AFRINIC news article).

CRITERIA FOR THE START OF EXHAUSTION PHASE 1

Section 5.4.2 of the CPM specifies the following criteria for the end of the Current Phase and the start of Exhaustion Phase 1:

The current phase will continue until an otherwise valid request for IPv4 address space from any 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 the AFRINIC IPv4 address pool empty (with the exception of the final /8).

AFRINIC will implement the specified criteria as follows.

When a request for IPv4 resources is approved but cannot be issued as a single contiguous block from the available inventory (excluding the final /8), the applicant will be given the option of receiving the resources as multiple smaller blocks instead (if there are sufficient smaller block to make that possible).  

If the applicant is willing to receive multiple smaller blocks adding up to the same amount of space as was approved, then the request is treated as "fulfilled".  If the applicant does not want multiple smaller blocks, or if there are not even enough smaller blocks to fulfil the approved request, then the request cannot be fulfilled, and Exhaustion Phase 1 will begin.  The applicant whose request was not fulfilled under the Current Phase may then receive no more than a /13 of IPv4 space under Exhaustion Phase 1.

It is also possible that an approved request under the Current Phase can be fulfilled (either as a single contiguous block or as multiple smaller blocks) but leaves the available IPv4 inventory empty (excluding the final /8).  In that case, Exhaustion Phase 1 will begin immediately after this request is approved, and will apply to all subsequent requests or any requests that are already in progress.

CHANGES IN EXHAUSTION PHASE 1

When Exhaustion Phase 1 begins, most current IPv4 policies continue to apply, but certain changes take effect:

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

CRITERIA FOR THE START OF EXHAUSTION PHASE 2

Exhaustion Phase 1 ends and Exhaustion Phase 2 begins when AFRINIC has no more than one /11 of non-reserved IPv4 space available in the final /8.  (CPM section 5.4.3.1.) The policy does not specify whether the /11 must be contiguous, or may be made up of multiple smaller blocks adding up to the same amount of space.

AFRINIC's interpretation is that the /11 may be made up of multiple smaller blocks.  Accordingly, Exhaustion Phase 2 will begin when the available non-reserved space in the final /8 is no more than 2097152 IP addresses (the same amount as a /11), regardless of how the available addresses are arranged in contiguous or discontiguous blocks.  Nevertheless, AFRINIC will endeavour to keep a contiguous /11 set aside for as long as reasonably feasible.

CHANGES IN EXHAUSTION PHASE 2

When Exhaustion Phase 2 begins, most of the IPv4 policies from Exhaustion Phase 1 continue to apply, but the following changes will take effect:

1. Minimum IPv4 Allocation or Assignment shall be /24. (CPM section 5.4.3.2.)
2. Maximum IPv4 Allocation or Assignment shall be /22. (CPM section 5.4.3.2.)

The following considerations from Exhaustion Phase 1 will continue to apply in Exhaustion Phase 2:

1. No explicit limit on the number of times an organization may request additional IPv4 space. (CPM section 5.4.4.)
2. Allocation/Assignment period (planning window) is 8 months. (CPM section 5.4.5.)
3. Existing Resource Members are eligible to get additional blocks if 90% efficient usage of all resources has been demonstrated. (CPM section 5.4.6.1.)
4. Use of AFRINIC IPv4 resources outside the AFRINIC service region should be solely in support of connectivity back to the AFRINIC region. (CPM section 5.4.6.2.)