Summary

  • AFRINIC’s extended-statistics serial for 27 August 2026 reports 547 IPv4 reserved rows containing 4,498,432 addresses. The file defines reserved space only as neither allocated nor assigned, and unavailable for allocation or assignment.
  • AFRINIC’s own guidance describes three reservation types—policy, temporary and quarantine—while saying that the extended file cannot differentiate the cases.
  • Those types have different authorities, clocks and exits. The public total cannot show whether space is serving a policy purpose, waiting through a 45-day invoice period or passing through a reclamation quarantine.
  • A privacy-safe companion table could publish aggregate subtype, authority, age and transitions while protecting applicant and former-holder details.

At first sight, the number is admirably precise. In AFRINIC’s extended-statistics file with serial 20260827, 547 IPv4 records carry the status reserved. Add their address counts and the result is 4,498,432. The same operation finds 110,303,744 allocated addresses, 5,815,040 assigned addresses and 633,088 available addresses.

That arithmetic is reproducible. Its interpretation is not.

The extended-file specification gives reserved a deliberately spare meaning. The resource has not been allocated or assigned to an entity, and it is not available for allocation or assignment. The wider RIR statistics exchange format calls these files snapshots without transactional or historical detail. The status therefore answers a stock question: where was the address space, in public accounting terms, on that serial date?

It does not answer the next question: why was it there?

One status contains three different clocks

AFRINIC’s IP Resources Management page supplies the missing distinction in prose. It says AFRINIC uses three types of reservation: policy reservations, temporary reservations and quarantine. It then says, with unusual directness, that reserved resources cannot be differentiated from the extended statistics file.

The difference is not cosmetic. Each type describes a different authority and expected transition.

A policy reservation begins with a public rule. AFRINIC says some ratified policies require it to reserve a prefix and specify the size. Its current Consolidated Policy Manual, for example, contains provisions for space reserved for Internet exchange points. The management page says policy-reserved resources are registered in WHOIS. That is a reservation with an externally identifiable purpose, even if the daily statistical record does not carry the purpose as a subtype.

A temporary reservation follows an operational clock. AFRINIC says the approved allocation or assignment size is held for 45 days while an existing or prospective member arranges payment of the billed fees. Payment can lead to allocation or assignment. Expiry without payment returns the reservation to the available pool. This is not merely “unused” space. It is a conditional commitment designed, AFRINIC explains, to avoid approving more space than it can issue while invoices remain valid.

Quarantine follows a reclamation path. AFRINIC describes it in connection with closure after non-payment of annual membership fees and breach of the Registration Service Agreement. Reclaimed resources are held for a period before a later decision about their state. The page says quarantine and temporary reservations are kept in records not exposed through the public file; hostmasters can see quarantined inventory, and AFRINIC has said it plans to publish those resources in due course.

None of this establishes how the 4,498,432 addresses divide on 27 August. It does not prove that all three cases were present. It cannot identify the cause of a single row. The correct conclusion is smaller but still consequential: the public stock count combines states whose policy basis, duration and exit condition differ.

A total is not a supply forecast

The attraction of one large number is that it appears to simplify scarcity. If 4.5 million addresses are reserved, a reader may ask why they cannot simply be released. The sources do not support that move.

Policy space may be set aside for a continuing public purpose. A temporary reservation may already correspond to an approved request and a live invoice. Quarantined space may require a risk, legal or operational transition before reuse. Even within one category, two records may have different start dates and next review points. The shared label shows that none was publicly available at the snapshot. It does not make them interchangeable.

Nor should the number be used to claim a present allocation delay, a longer waiting list or a particular exhaustion date. The file is an inventory snapshot, not a demand model. It contains no application queue, invoice status, case outcome or forecast. Converting a status total into a counterfactual supply claim would add evidence the file was never designed to provide.

This distinction matters in the opposite direction too. A legitimate reason for reservation should not be immune from review merely because the public can count it. The current policy manual says conservation generally requires avoiding stockpiling and maintaining reservations. It also contains rules that affirmatively require reservations. Those statements are compatible if reservation is treated as an exceptional, explainable state rather than a single undifferentiated warehouse.

The question is therefore not “why is AFRINIC holding 4.5 million addresses?” That formulation assumes one decision. The better questions are: how much belongs to each broad cause; which public policy or protected procedure controls it; how old is the state; and what event can move it next?

The public file does exactly what its format promises

The absence of subtype should not be misdescribed as a false statistic. The exchange format was built to provide comparable RIR status records. Its four public dispositions—available, allocated, assigned and reserved—are useful precisely because they are stable and compact.

Adding case detail to every exchange record would also create costs. A temporary reservation could expose information about an applicant before an allocation appears in WHOIS. A quarantine record could point to a former member, a payment dispute or a resource under sensitive review. Daily files are mirrored and archived by others; a disclosed case attribute cannot be recalled easily.

The solution need not be to overload the global exchange format. AFRINIC can keep the status file intact and publish a versioned companion summary. The distinction is important: a standardised resource snapshot and a registry-specific accountability instrument can serve different audiences while reconciling to the same total.

What a companion reservation account should contain

A useful public account begins with the serial and generated-at time. It reports row and address totals for policy, temporary and quarantine reservations. If another transition state genuinely exists, it receives a documented category rather than being silently folded into other forever.

For policy reservations, the summary can cite the controlling policy section and publish prefix-level detail where policy already requires a public list. For temporary reservations, it can report aggregate age or expiry bands and entries and exits during the period without identifying applicants. For quarantine, it can report aggregate age bands, review authority and transitions without naming former holders or disclosing routing-risk evidence.

Every category should show zero when the count is zero. Silence is ambiguous: it may mean no cases, a missing field or a publication failure. Totals should reconcile to the daily file’s 547 rows and 4,498,432 addresses, or explain a timing or scope difference. Corrections should be versioned so that a later reader can distinguish an operational change from repaired reporting.

The protected case record can be richer. It can retain the prefix, start event, controlling authority, evidence, expected expiry or review, permitted next states, decision owner and corrections. The public needs the aggregate projection, not the applicant’s invoice or the former member’s file.

This design also avoids pretending that “transparency” means publishing everything. The reviewable object is the lifecycle: why a class of space entered the reserved state, which clock or rule holds it there, and how much left for which destination. Identity is necessary only where the policy purpose is already public.

Sources