What AFRINIC’s IPv4 scarcity record can establish

IPv4 scarcity made a technical registry into an economic institution, but the verified public record is narrower than the old controversy narrative. AFRINIC's published rules describe how it rations a finite pool, what it charges members, which services it says it operates, and how it characterises legal disputes. Those pages can establish policy language and institutional claims. They cannot establish market prices, a court's holding, uptime or an unallocated-address count unless the page or an order says so.

The verified registry baseline

The Number Resource Organization describes the five RIRs as not-for-profit, member-based associations that distribute Internet number resources under regional policy. Its RIR table lists AFRINIC as established in 2005, located in Mauritius, serving Africa, with 2,566 members as at 30 June 2026. The NRO page uses the name African Network Coordination Centre; AFRINIC uses African Network Information Centre. IANA's IPv4 address-space registry records 41/8 as allocated to AFRINIC in 2005-04. It also records later allocations to AFRINIC: 102/8 in 2011-02, 105/8 in 2010-11 and 197/8 in 2008-10.

Its 154/8 and 196/8 entries are different: both dated 1993-05, marked LEGACY, and described as Administered by AFRINIC.

IANA also says its IPv4 supply has been exhausted and that recovered space is allocated under post-exhaustion policy.

AFRINIC's own 2018 news item gives one concrete recovered allocation: IANA allocated 45.96.0.0 through 45.111.255.255 to AFRINIC from the recovered pool. That is an allocation record, not an assertion that AFRINIC had abundant space or that any specific block was later sold, leased or transferred.

What the rationing rules say

AFRINIC's exhaustion page says Phase 1 began on 31 March 2017. It says Phase 2 began on 13 January 2020 and that, under Phase 2, the minimum allocation or assignment is a /24 and the maximum is a /22. It defines entry into Phase 2 by the final /8 having no more than a /11 of non-reserved space. It describes ticket processing, completeness checks, a contractual compliance check and a 90% efficient-use requirement for additional blocks. Those are rationing rules: they allocate scarcity by documentation and administrative review, not by a market price.

The same page contains a table entry saying AFRINIC has not yet reached Phase 2. That contradiction is not a minor typo for public readers. It determines whether the current page should be cited as an operating rule, a historical announcement or a status claim. The correct public treatment is to quote the rule and the dated announcement, then check current pool statistics and AFRINIC notices before saying which phase is operationally in force. The page also states that by 24 September 2015 APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC and RIPE NCC had exhausted their free pools and were allocating from final /8 space.

That is AFRINIC's summary of peer RIR status, not an independent audit of each peer.

AFRINIC's resources page adds a separate operational statement: a member seeking an additional prefix should have 80% of its total IPv4 allocation in use, should have registered assignments in WHOIS, and should request through MyAFRINIC. The exhaustion page's 90% figure applies to additional blocks under its Phase 2 description. The pages have different scopes; readers should not merge the two into a single universal threshold.

Fees, services and the limits of the record

AFRINIC's fee page says fees may change yearly according to operating costs and financial health, subject to Board validation. For LIRs it lists a medium category for allocations at least /16 and below /14 at US$12,800 annual membership. It lists a US$4,000 allocation fee for that band. It gives separate end-site, IPv6, ASN, academic, critical-infrastructure and transfer rules. These are administrative charges for membership and service. They are not evidence of a market price for an address block. The page does not show the 2023 fee schedule or prove that today's schedule applied in 2023.

AFRINIC's service pages describe WHOIS, reverse DNS, an Internet Routing Registry and resource certification. RDAP appears as a navigation link, but the supplied pages do not include a captured RDAP service description. DNSSEC also appears in the site's navigation, without a captured service description of the same kind. Reverse DNS, for example, is described as available on 8-bit IPv4 boundaries, typically /16 or /24, with registered assignments required before delegation. RPKI is described as a framework for verifying the association between IP addresses or ASNs and their holders. These descriptions establish service design.

They do not show that WHOIS, reverse DNS, RPKI or the IRR remained reliable during any particular governance dispute, because uptime and incident data are not supplied.

The legal dispute: claims, not adjudication

AFRINIC's 9 May 2026 communiqué says the court order dated 11 June 2025 did not establish, approve, recognise or create a “Court-Ordered Shareholder-Position Continuity Structure”. It says AFRINIC is considering legal steps to clarify the register referred to in the order. Its 15 May 2026 communiqué says the Supreme Court of Mauritius issued an interim order on 14 May 2026 against Cloud Innovation Ltd following statements published through Larus Ltd, and that the publication wrongly suggested the court had authorised leasing of AFRINIC-allocated Internet number resources.

The same communiqué says the court allowed ICANN to intervene in a winding-up petition filed by Cloud Innovation in July 2025.

LARUS's public page gives a different account. It says the 11 June 2025 order directed that AFRINIC's register of members be rectified to add Cloud Innovation Ltd, that the Registrar of Companies was directed to update records, and that the receiver undertook to rectify records within 15 days. LARUS also markets itself as built on “court-recognized shareholder rights” and offers first-party IPv4 leasing.

These are party statements. The supplied record does not include the order texts, the ICANN intervention filing, or a judgment resolving the competing characterisations. A public analysis should therefore say what each party asserts, label it as an assertion, and avoid saying that a court “authorised leasing”, “prohibited leasing”, “established shareholder continuity” or “found Larus statements false” unless an order in the supplied record says so.

What a careful reader should watch

The first watchpoint is the exhaustion status. AFRINIC's page is internally inconsistent. Track its published IPv4 pool statistics, allocation notices and policy implementation notices before treating Phase 2 as an active operational finding. The second is fee history: no archived 2023 schedule is supplied. The third is legal continuity: actual orders and filings matter more than communiqués. The fourth is service integrity: service descriptions do not prove uptime. The fifth is record integrity: WHOIS, reverse DNS, RPKI and IRR are operationally important, but no supplied page reports recent availability metrics.

The verified lesson is narrower than a market essay. A registry can distribute scarce addresses at administrative cost while its records and legal status carry real economic consequences. Whether it reduces or amplifies those consequences depends on predictable rules, auditable records and legal clarity. AFRINIC's published rules and communiqués show why that is contested. They do not, by themselves, establish the market outcome.