March 15 2017 - Call for Nominations - AFRINIC Governance Committee (GC) Members

The AFRINIC Governance Committee is a standing committee whose purpose is to advise the AFRINIC Board, AFRINIC Membership, and the community, on matters of governance.

NomCom is hereby calling for nominations from the community for one Governance Committee position up for election, to serve a three-year term from January 2018 to December 2020. The seat is currently held by Abdalla Omari.

NomCom would like to receive Nominations from all of the AFRINIC sub-regions and are explicitly looking for both Gender and Language diversity although a working understanding of the English language would be highly beneficial.

The GC Charter is available here 

Nomination Requirements:

• GC members shall be resident in the AFRINIC service region.
• None of the elected members may be an AFRINIC Director, or an AFRINIC employee.
• A valid nomination must originate from or be submitted by an authorized and registered contact person of the nominating member organization. The nomination must also be seconded/endorsed by at least one additional AFRINIC member, different from the nominating member organization. Nominators and seconders/endorsers must all be AFRINIC members in good standing.
• Self-nominations are permitted and must be endorsed by 2 distinct AFRINIC members in good standing.

To nominate yourself or a candidate of your choice, please complete the nomination form here

Deadline for Nominations

The Closure of the Candidate Nomination period is 22^nd April 2017 at 20:00 UTC.

Please note that the election will take place during the AFRINIC-26 meeting in Nairobi Kenya from 31^st May-02 June 2017,

NomCom 2017

March 15 2017 - The AFRINIC NomCom2017 is pleased to invite nominations for 1 Co-Chair of the Policy Development Working Group (PDWG) for a 2-year term. June 2017 to June 2019. The Seat is currently held by Dewole Ajao.

PDWG co-chairs are volunteers selected by the community as provided for in the current Policy Development Process (PDP). Their responsibilities are as follows:

• Creating reports (summaries) of mailing list discussions in preparation for face to face meetings.
• Chairing the meeting sessions and declaring consensus.
• Creating post-meeting policy report and posting to the mailing list.
• Sending notifications of Last Call and evaluating consensus or not thereof.
• Writing report to the board to recommend ratification of policy proposals that gained consensus.
• Evaluating emergencies that necessitate varying the normal policy development process.

Eligibility

Open to individuals residing within the AFRINIC service region.  All nominations (including self-nominations) shall be supported by a minimum of two AFRINIC community members; the two individuals must not work for the same organization.

A person may only nominate one candidate - and, in case of multiple nominations by the same person, only the last nomination will be considered valid. AFRINIC or other RIR staff can neither nominate candidates nor be nominated.

Nominating Procedure

Nominations must be submitted using this nomination form. Please browse to the pages below for more information about the PDWG and related material:

• The AFRINIC Policy Development Working Group
• AFRINIC PDWG Co-chair Election Process

Deadline for Nominations

The Closure of the Candidate Nomination period is 22^nd April 2017 at 20:00 UTC.

Please note that the election will take place during the AFRINIC-26 meeting in Nairobi, Kenya from 31^st May-02 June 2017.An eligible voter shall be any non-AFRINIC staff who has registered to attend (and is present at) the AFRINIC-26 meeting. A registration badge shall be requested as proof.

NomCom 2017

March 29 2017 - AFRINIC is pleased to announce that the AFRINIC-26 fellowship selection process is now complete and the following applicants have been selected to receive a fellowship to attend AFRINIC-26, being held alongside the Africa Internet Summit (AIS'17), from 27 May - 2 June 2017 in Nairobi, Kenya. Congratulations to all the fellows and we look forward to collaborating with you on Internet development initiatives in the African region.

Find out more about the AFRINIC Fellowship Program.

March 30 2017 - As of 27 March 2017, AFRINIC's pool of available IPv4 address space contained the equivalent of 1.03 /8s and we expect to reach the last /8 of available IPv4 space by the end of March or the first days of April 2017.

This means that AFRINIC's IPv4 address space inventory will very soon reach the previously agreed level where the "Current Phase" will end, and "Exhaustion Phase 1" of the AFPUB-2010-v4-005: IPv4 Soft Landing Policy will be triggered. This community-developed policy can be found here.

As of today, AFRINIC is still managing Internet number resources as per the requirements outlined in existing policies (the "Current Phase") but this will change imminently. You can view all current policies here.

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

GUIDANCE FOR MEMBERS

All AFRINIC Resource Members are kindly requested to familiarise themselves with AFPUB-2010-v4-005: IPv4 Soft Landing Policy, available here

In addition to the policy itself, please refer to the communique dated 16 January 2017, announcing AFRINIC's approach to IPv4 Exhaustion.

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)).

CURRENT ALLOCATION or ASSIGNMENT PROCESS

As of today, AFRINIC is still managing Internet number resources under existing policies, which can be found here.

The current process involves AFRINIC's hostmasters evaluating resource requests received, and deciding on the prefix that can be approved for each particular resource member based on the information provided. Members are subsequently invoiced an allocation/assignment fee based on prefix size approved. There is no limit (based on justified need) to the size of prefix that can be approved. Resources are marked as RESERVED when a request is approved, and are subsequently issued to the requesting Member when AFRINIC receives the payment of the allocation/assignment fees.

CRITERIA FOR THE START OF EXHAUSTION PHASE 1

Exhaustion Phase 1 is triggered as soon as a request cannot be fulfilled, or can be fulfilled but leaves the available IPv4 inventory - excluding the final /8 - empty.

As described in the previous communique dated 16 January 2017, if a request for IPv4 resources is approved but cannot be fulfilled using 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 is a sufficient amount of smaller blocks 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 enough smaller blocks to fulfil the approved request, then the request cannot be fulfilled.

The communique can be found here

CHANGES TO POLICIES IN EXHAUSTION PHASE 1

When Exhaustion Phase 1 begins, most 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.

FUTURE INFORMATION 

AFRINIC will issue another communique when Exhaustion Phase 1 begins, and again when Exhaustion Phase 2 appears to be imminent. 

More information:

• IPv4 exhaustion: www.afrinic.net/en/community/ipv4-exhaustion

• IPv6 deployment: www.afrinic.net/en/services/ipv6-programme

• AFRINIC's Policy Development Process (PDP): www.afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development

• Global Policy Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space: www.icann.org/resources/pages/remaining-ipv4-2012-02-25-en

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

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

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.