AFRINIC: when an IPv4 record drifts, networks feel it

A record drifts, and the network notices

A mail server begins deferring messages from a customer subnet. The server is up, the customer's SPF record looks right, but the reverse DNS zone no longer matches the address block. A validating router drops a route because the ROA does not cover the prefix being announced. An abuse mailbox that was current years ago goes unanswered while a compromised virtual machine keeps sending. A geolocation row still places a data centre in the wrong country, so a content service serves the wrong catalogue. These are not dramatic failures. They are ordinary consequences of a registry record that has stopped describing the network.

That is why AFRINIC's IPv4 scarcity rules and its contested leasing dispute matter beyond the registry world. The issue is not only whether addresses are scarce. It is whether the registry can still see who is using them, who is accountable for them, and what happens when the formal record and the operating network move apart.

What AFRINIC is and what its record says

AFRINIC is the Regional Internet Registry for Africa. Its statistics page says it allocates resources to members who satisfy Internet resource policy requirements. Its policy page says anyone may propose and discuss policy, regardless of location, gender and race; discussion happens mainly on the rpd mailing list and at twice-yearly Public Policy Meetings. The Policy Development Working Group discusses proposals that AFRINIC implements for IPv4, IPv6 and ASN distribution in Africa.

That is coordination, not sale. The registry keeps records, applies policy and tries to ensure the same address is not promised to two networks. When addresses are plentiful, the job is mostly administrative. When they are scarce, every record becomes a small allocation of economic value.

Scarcity became a rulebook

AFRINIC's exhaustion page records the chronology. In February 2011, IANA allocated two large blocks to APNIC, and the global pool fell to a critically low level. Each RIR then received one /8. By 24 September 2015, four of the five RIRs had exhausted their free pools. AFRINIC entered Soft-landing Phase 1 on 31 March 2017 and Phase 2 on 13 January 2020.

In Phase 2, the minimum allocation or assignment is /24 and the maximum is /22. Additional requests require at least 90% efficient use of space already delegated. A 2019 AFRINIC news item adds that Phase 2 begins when no more than one /11 of non-reserved space remains in the final /8, and that use outside the service region should solely support connectivity back to the region, citing CPM section 5.4.6.2.

These are policy conditions, not market observations. They tell an operator what the registry will consider a justified request. They do not tell an operator what the address is worth to someone else, or whether a downstream customer will still be reachable if the record changes.

The fee page is not a market price

AFRINIC's fee page describes a membership and cost-recovery model. New members are evaluated, then pay an allocation or assignment fee and an annual membership fee based on billable resources held. The schedule is dated 2008 unless amended. It describes exceptional transfers under merger-and-acquisition guidelines, with accounts in good standing before review.

Those rules tell an applicant what membership costs. They do not set a market price. That distinction matters because a lease can look expensive or cheap next to the fee schedule without telling anyone whether the arrangement is recognised, who is responsible for abuse handling, or what happens if the registry record is later questioned.

Why leasing creates a visibility gap

When addresses are scarce and allocation is administrative, a gap can open between the entity named in the registry and the entities actually using the addresses. A member may hold a block and assign capacity to customers. It may use a first-party lessor to supply and operate addresses downstream. The registry sees the member; the market may see an internet provider, a hosting platform, a reseller and an end customer.

'Shadow allocation' can describe that gap if it is used carefully. It is not a finding of fraud, theft or record manipulation. It is a visibility problem: the economically relevant user of a block is not always the entity the registry sees as the formal holder.

What LARUS says, and what it does not settle

LARUS publicly markets first-party IPv4 leasing as a continuity product for ISPs, hosting platforms, data centres and network operators. Its homepage says it handles RPKI/ROA, rDNS, geolocation, reputation and abuse with one team. Its leasing page says Continuity Critical includes Guaranteed Renewal and a named escalation path.

Those are company claims. They are useful evidence of how a lessor frames the product: not merely addresses, but continuity, support and renewal. They are not proof of market consensus, and they do not resolve the legal question of what the registry must recognise.

Settled membership, distinct questions about operations

The 11 June 2025 order in SC/COM/MOT/000399/2025 directed rectification under section 91 of the Companies Act, inclusion of Cloud Innovation in the category of Member and corresponding entries by the Registrar of Companies. It also recorded AFRINIC’s undertaking to correct its records within fifteen days. The Receiver signed that undertaking on 10 June.

The inclusion direction is a final judicial determination, not a suggestion for administrators to reconsider. The same decided issue cannot simply be retried by the Registrar or the Executive. An available appeal, stay or variation must be pursued before a competent court. A request for relief does not itself suspend compliance.

AFRINIC’s bylaws reserve the label “Registered Member” for a director-specific category. Cloud accepts correction of its former classification in that category. The 19 June ruling does not cancel the 11 June directions to include it as a Member. Removing an incorrect category and making the correct entry are parts of the same correction, not grounds for erasing company-law membership.

The 14 May 2026 interim order in SC/COM/WRT/000338/2026 concerns statements falsely attributing judicial approval to leasing or commercialisation. It requires removal of statements suggesting that approval. The 28 May date in the certified rule is the deadline to communicate the respondent’s stand and the return date; the removal direction itself says forthwith. That interim order concerns statements about leasing or commercialisation; it is not the 11 June 2025 membership judgment and does not reopen Cloud Innovation’s final inclusion. Cloud’s response says no one made the alleged claim of court approval and that it learned of the order through AFRINIC’s communiqué rather than formal service. Those are attributed statements, not findings on service.

For the network documents court protection against withdrawal of allocated resources and loss of WHOIS access. The pattern records AFRINIC’s 2021 demand for website monitoring backed by suspension or termination threats. These concrete actions explain Cloud’s insistence on bounded registry powers: networks need stable address use and accurate records, with enforceable rights against the administrator.

Court orders establish rights; current technical measurements establish service performance. Verify WHOIS/RDAP records, route-origin authorisations, reverse DNS and incident history for the relevant resources. Neither a membership judgment nor a service catalogue is an uptime measurement. Administrative fees are not market prices for addresses.

Editorial correction, 11 November 2026: the earlier legal sections treated missing source retrieval as unresolved membership. They have been replaced with the original inclusion order and a separate reading of the May 2026 interim order.