AFRINIC is pleased to make the following announcements:

1. Two policies have been implemented, namely:

i) Policy Clarification on IPv6 Sub-Assignments v3 (https://afrinic.net/policy/2018-v6-002-d3#proposal)

ii) SL Update (https://afrinic.net/policy/proposals/2018-v4-001)

2. The Consolidated Policy Manual v1.4 published on the AFRINIC website (https://afrinic.net/policy/manual) includes the two implemented policies

3. CPM 1.3 has been archived at https://afrinic.net/cpm-1-3

AFRINIC Communications

AFRINIC is 1.85 million /32s IPv4 away from Phase 2 of IPv4 exhaustion

As of 16 October 2019, AFRINIC has 3.9 million /32s addresses in the available IPv4 pool. We are now 1.85 million /32s addresses away from the /11 threshold which will trigger Phase 2 of IPv4 exhaustion. Consequently, we expect to reach Phase 2 of IPv4 exhaustion by the end of this year.

AFRINIC is still managing Internet number resources as per the requirements outlined in existing policies (the "Phase 1") but this will change as soon as the threshold for "Phase 2" is reached. The AFPUB-2010-v4-005: IPv4 Soft Landing community-developed policy can be found here: www.afrinic.net/library/policies/697-ipv4-soft-landing-policy

AFRINIC's available inventory of IPv4 space is updated daily at https://afrinic.net/stats/ipv4-pool

GUIDANCE FOR MEMBERS

All AFRINIC Resource Members are encouraged to get acquainted with AFPUB-2010-v4-005: IPv4 Soft Landing Policy, available at https://afrinic.net/policy/manual#Soft-Landing

In addition to the policy, please refer to the communique, dated 19 August 2019, announcing AFRINIC's approach of Phase 2 of IPv4 Exhaustion: https://www.afrinic.net/2019-08-19-afrinic-approaches-ipv4-exhaustion-soft-landing-phase-2

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

• They are compliant with Contractual Obligations checks. More details at https://afrinic.net/ast/pdf/membership-agreement/Contractual_Obligations_Check-082018.pdf
• Submit complete IPv4 resource requests, including all information needed to verify policy compliance.
• All PA assignments, sub-allocations and other types of resource assignments are appropriately registered in the AFRINIC database as per Section 5.3.2 of the Consolidated Policy Manual
• Make arrangements for AFRINIC staff to check online statistics via screen sharing or similar methods, at a time between 06:00UTC and 11:30 am UTC, Monday to Friday (between 10:00 and 15:30 Mauritius time (UTC+4)).
• Be aware of how their ticket is handled by AFRINIC staff https://afrinic.net/support/general-queries/how-afrinic-handle-request

REQUEST HANDLING

Applications are processed on a first-come-first-served basis. While processing Incomplete resource requests applications, the applicants will be informed of the pending supporting information and evaluation shall be concluded once the applicant has provided all the required information. Upon conclusion of the evaluation, the resource requests will undergo a review by a second IP Resource Analyst and Registration Services Manager.

Fairness, consistency and due diligence shall be the highest priority of AFRINIC during this final countdown to Soft Landing Phase 2. AFRINIC will strive to respect the Service Level Commitment of two working days when processing the resource requests tickets.

AFRINIC has implemented an approval delay to ensure that the requests are correctly evaluated. The final approval of the prefix size shall be done in the correct order by the Registration Services Manager. It will also enable AFRINIC to find any undelegated prefixes. All final approvals shall happen on a Friday.

Once the resource requests have been approved, AFRINIC shall proceed and invoice the applicant based on the type and size of the approved prefix. The approved prefix will be reserved for up to 45 days, awaiting the payment of the invoiced amount. 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/or the RSA are not received within 45 days, the reserved resource will be returned to the available pool and the applicant will need to submit a new request.

CRITERIA FOR THE START OF EXHAUSTION PHASE 2

Section 5.4.3.1 of the CPM specifies the following criteria for the end of Phase 1 and the start of Exhaustion Phase 2:

"Allocations and assignments will be made from the Final /8 or from any other IPv4 address space available to AFRINIC until no more than a /11 of non-reserved space is available in the Final /8. At this point, the Exhaustion Phase 2 will begin. For the avoidance of doubt, all applications will be in the process at this point will be evaluated as per the new policy."

AFRINIC will implement the specified criteria as follows:

1. 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.
2. 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 2,097,152 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.
3. When AFRINIC approves a request for IPv4 resources that cannot be fulfilled from the IPv4 address space available (except the last /11) in the AFRINIC pool, Phase 2 of IPv4 Exhaustion shall be triggered. 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 pool reserved for Phase 2.

NO GUARANTEE OF AGGREGATION OR CLEANLINESS

AFRINIC does not guarantee that the IP space to be delegated to the members will be aggregated. For example, an organisation requesting a /17 IPv4 may receive multiple prefixes, the combined total of which will be equivalent to a /17 IPv4.

AFRINIC shall also issue recovered space (from resource returns and revocations). These resources have been cleaned up (no route objects or routing advertisements) but could be listed in IP-based blacklists. Members receiving such blocks will be notified.

CHANGES IN EXHAUSTION PHASE 2

When Exhaustion Phase 2 begins, most current IPv4 policies continue to apply, but certain changes take effect.

• Minimum IPv4 Allocation or Assignment shall be /24. (CPM section 5.4.3.2.)
• Maximum IPv4 Allocation or Assignment shall be /22. (CPM section 5.4.3.2.)
• No explicit limit on the number of times an organisation may request additional IPv4 space. (CPM section 5.4.4.)
• Allocation/Assignment period (planning window) is eight (8) months. (CPM section 5.4.5.)
• 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.)
• 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.)

Please see the relevant sections in the Consolidated Policy Manual for more information: https://afrinic.net/policy/manual

FUTURE INFORMATION

AFRINIC will issue another communique when Exhaustion Phase 2 begins.

More information:

• IPv4 exhaustion: https://www.afrinic.net/exhaustion
• IPv6 deployment: www.afrinic.net/en/services/ipv6-programme
• AFRINIC's Policy Development Process (PDP): https://afrinic.net/policy
• Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space: www.icann.org/resources/pages/remaining-ipv4-2012-02-25-en

AFRINIC today awarded 28 of its employees with long service awards in a ceremony held at its headquarters in Mauritius. The awards were aimed at celebrating the AFRINIC Team and to acknowledge the hard work and commitment they have invested in the organisation.

Continue

AFRINIC's available IPv4 resource pool is gradually decreasing. AFRINIC has been delegating IPv4 resources to its Resource Members who have demonstrated needs according to IPv4 Exhaustion Phase 1 of the soft landing policy. As we approach Phase 2 of the Exhaustion phase, we would like to seize this opportunity to keep our membership aware of the coming changes and implications.

AFRINIC's available inventory of IPv4 space is updated daily and is summarised at https://afrinic.net/stats/ipv4-pool. Here is an update on the implementation of the IPv4 Soft Landing policy as per Section 5.4 of the Consolidated Policy Manual.  

Soft Landing Policy

In 2011,  "IPv4 Soft Landing" policy to deal with the exhaustion of IPv4 address space was proposed, discussed and reached agreed.  The policy is currently described in Section 5.4 of the Consolidated Policy Manual - see https://afrinic.net/policy/manual#Soft-Landing.  (It was earlier known under the identifier "AFPUB-2010-v4-005").

The soft landing policy defines the phases for the 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. These criteria are 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 2

Section 5.4.3.1 of the CPM specifies the following criteria for the end of Phase 1 and the start of Exhaustion Phase 2:

"Allocations and assignments will be made from the Final /8 or from any other IPv4 address space available to AFRINIC until no more than a /11 of non-reserved space is available in the Final /8. At this point, the Exhaustion Phase 2 will begin. For the avoidance of doubt, all applications that are still under evaluation at this point will be evaluated as per the new clause."

AFRINIC will implement the specified criteria as follows.

• 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 2,097,152 IP addresses (the equivalent of 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 clauses 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 organisation 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.)
    

Operational

AFRINIC encourages all its Resource Members to ensure policy compliance and submit their resource requests with complete information.

Future Information

AFRINIC will issue another communique when Exhaustion Phase 2 appears to be imminent. 

More information

• Related news: IPv4 exhaustion: www.afrinic.net/exhaustion
• AFRINIC's Policy Development Process (PDP): https://afrinic.net/policy
• Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space: www.icann.org/resources/pages/remaining-ipv4-2012-02-25-en

(Arabic version below)

As part of our ongoing effort to improve our services, we invited you to participate in the 2018 AFRINIC Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) from 05 October 2018 to 15 February 2019. The study was conducted with the following objectives in mind:

1. To measure the quality of service delivered by AFRINIC to its members and the community
2. To identify the main drivers of satisfaction with the service level as well as the causes of dissatisfaction with some of our services in order to build on the strengths and work on the weak areas
3. To determine the expectations of members with regards to improving AFRINIC’s overall services and to prioritise areas of members’ interests
4. To understand the importance of each component of the value chain from the members’ perspectives.

To ensure transparent and objective analysis of the CSS results, AFRINIC contracted DCDM Research, an organisation that has extensive experience in designing and conducting statistical surveys in order to have specialist consultation and advice on the matter. The final report of this survey is available at https://afrinic.net/surveys/customer-satisfaction-report-2019

It is satisfying to note that 80% of AFRINIC members are satisfied with the overall services we provide as indicated on page 14 of the report. We, however, are already working to enhance the request-response time by Customer and Registration Services department as most of the respondents indicated the need to improve on the department’s performance (p.10-11). In line with AFRINIC’s Service Level Commitment, we have now implemented an internal dashboard to track service levels and to monitor the improvements in our customer and registration services.

We also acknowledge the suggestions and recommendations by AFRINIC members on some key services and activities that AFRINIC should conduct in the future (p. 31-32). However, implementation of these activities will be carried out over the coming years subject to availability of funds.

We are also considering the feedback from the AFRINIC community regarding the need to charge some fees from attendees of AFRINIC public meetings. The community highly recommended AFRINIC’s public events, community capacity building, Internet statistic information, community engagements, and fellowship programmes, and we acknowledge the urgent need to improve our current website as requested by the community (p. 56).

We conclude by pointing out that AFRINIC members and community are overall satisfied with the organisation’s performance and they have been loyal to us over the years. Both the satisfaction and the loyalty level have increased in comparison to 2012 and 2018 (pp9, 58).

Thank you for your continued support.

أعزائي الأعضاء الكرام وأصحاب المصلحة

كجزء من جهودنا المستمرة لتحسين خدماتنا ، قمنا بدعوتك للمشاركة في استبيان رضا العملاء (CSS) لعام 2018 من 05 أكتوبر 2018 إلى 15 فبراير 2019. وقد أجريت الدراسة مع مراعاة الأهداف التالية:

1. لقياس جودة الخدمة التي تقدمها AFRINIC لأفرادها والمجتمع
2. تحديد الدوافع الرئيسية للرضا عن مستوى الخدمة وكذلك أسباب عدم الرضا عن بعض خدماتنا من أجل البناء على نقاط القوة والعمل على المناطق الضعيفة
3. تحديد توقعات الأعضاء فيما يتعلق بتحسين خدمات AFRINIC الشاملة وتحديد أولويات اهتمامات الأعضاء
4. فهم أهمية كل عنصر في سلسلة القيمة من وجهة نظر الأعضاء.

لضمان تحليل شفاف وموضوعي لنتائج CSS ، تعاقدت AFRINIC مع DCDM Research ، وهي منظمة لديها خبرة واسعة في تصميم وإجراء المسوحات الإحصائية من أجل الحصول على مشورة متخصصة وإسداء المشورة بشأن هذه المسألة. يتوفر التقرير النهائي لهذا الاستطلاع عبر عنوان https://afrinic.net/surveys/customer-satisfaction-report-2019 ، وأنا أشارككم هنا بعض النقاط البارزة.

من المرضي ملاحظة أن 80٪ من أعضاء AFRINIC راضون عن الخدمات الشاملة التي نقدمها كما هو موضح في الصفحة 14 من التقرير. ومع ذلك ، نحن نعمل بالفعل على تعزيز وقت الاستجابة للطلب من قبل قسم خدمات العملاء والتسجيل لأن معظم المشاركين أشاروا إلى الحاجة إلى تحسين أداء القسم (ص 10-11). تمشيا مع التزام AFRINIC الخاص بمستوى الخدمة ، قمنا الآن بتنفيذ لوحة معلومات داخلية لتتبع مستويات الخدمة ومراقبة التحسينات في خدمات العملاء والتسجيل لدينا.

نقر أيضًا بالاقتراحات والتوصيات المقدمة من أعضاء AFRINIC بشأن بعض الخدمات والأنشطة الرئيسية التي يجب على AFRINIC القيام بها في المستقبل (ص 31 - 32). ومع ذلك ، سيتم تنفيذ هذه الأنشطة على مدى السنوات القادمة رهنا بتوافر الأموال.

نحن نفكر أيضًا في التعليقات الواردة من مجتمع AFRINIC فيما يتعلق بضرورة فرض بعض الرسوم من الحاضرين للاجتماعات العامة لـ AFRINIC. أوصى المجتمع بشدة بأحداث AFRINIC العامة ، وبناء قدرات المجتمع ، والمعلومات الإحصائية عبر الإنترنت ، والمشاركة المجتمعية ، وبرامج الزمالات ، ونحن نقر بالحاجة الملحة لتحسين موقعنا على شبكة الإنترنت الحالي بناءً على طلب المجتمع (الصفحة 56).

نختتم بالإشارة إلى أن أعضاء ومجتمع AFRINIC راضون بشكل عام عن أداء المنظمة وأنهم كانوا موالين لنا على مر السنين. زاد كل من مستوى الرضا والولاء مقارنة بعام 2012 و 2018 (الصفحات 9 ، 58).

شكرا لدعمكم المتواصل.

آلان باريت

الرئيس التنفيذي لشركة AFRINIC

Last year AFRINIC sponsored the deployment of 5 RIPE Atlas anchors in Africa. We invite you to read more about why it is important to host an anchor and help us build a better measurement infrastructure.

https://afrinic.net/blog/427-the-more-the-merrier-afrinic-s-ripe-atlas-anchor-distribution-in-2018