Summary

  • AFRINIC’s 27 March notice identifies AS329728–AS330751 as a new IANA allocation and says the 1,024-number block was added to its inventory.
  • IANA’s registry gives the block a 25 February registration date, but the frozen sources do not identify AFRINIC’s request date or which global-policy eligibility condition supported the allocation.

Analysis

AFRINIC published a short operational notice on 27 March 2026. It said the registry had received AS329728 through AS330751 from IANA, that IANA’s AS Numbers registry had been updated and that the new numbers had been added to AFRINIC’s inventory.

The interval contains 1,024 AS Numbers. That is not an incidental size: the global policy governing IANA allocations to Regional Internet Registries defines an ASN block as 1,024 numbers. AFRINIC’s own resource-management page now lists AS329728–AS330751 alongside its other ASN inventory ranges.

The public dates need to remain separate. IANA’s registry lists 25 February 2026 as the registration date for the block. AFRINIC’s announcement page is dated 27 March. Neither date is identified in the frozen sources as AFRINIC’s request date, IANA’s assessment date or the first day on which the numbers became available for assignment to members.

That distinction matters because an upstream allocation is not the same event as a downstream assignment. IANA allocates blocks to an RIR. AFRINIC then evaluates member requests under regional policy and may assign individual AS Numbers. The existence of a new upstream block does not show how many numbers have since been assigned, how fast demand is changing or how any applicant’s request was handled.

The global policy also defines the gate for an additional allocation. An RIR is eligible if it has allocated or assigned 80% of its previously received block, or if its free ASN inventory is below two months of projected need. The projection uses the average issuance rate over the preceding six months, and the number of new blocks is intended to support the next 12 months unless the RIR asks for fewer than it qualifies for.

AFRINIC’s notice says the allocation was in line with that policy. It does not identify whether the 80% condition or the two-month-supply condition applied. The IANA registry row and AFRINIC’s inventory page do not publish the supporting six-month rate, 12-month projection or requested block count either.

This is a bounded evidence gap, not evidence of ineligibility. The allocation itself appears in the authoritative IANA registry, and the global policy requires IANA, the NRO and the RIRs to announce allocations and update their respective records. Nothing in the frozen source set shows that the allocation was improper or that an internal request and assessment record did not exist.

A compact public allocation receipt would make the record more useful without exposing member data. It could state the request date, the applicable eligibility limb, the prior block’s utilisation or projected free-supply figure, the number of blocks requested and approved, and the dates of registry entry, local inventory activation and public announcement.

That receipt would also prevent several dates from being collapsed into one. Readers could see which date belongs to the request, eligibility assessment, IANA registration, AFRINIC inventory update and public notice. If a future correction were needed, a versioned receipt could show exactly what changed.

For now, the verifiable conclusion is narrow. AFRINIC received and recorded one standard 1,024-number ASN block. Its notice identifies the range and points to the governing policy, but it does not expose which policy trigger or demand calculation supported the allocation.

Sources