Summary

  • A new IPv6-only /32 LIR pays half the listed $2,500 allocation fee, or $1,250, while its first annual membership fee is fully discounted.
  • At the published $2,500 annual base, membership would cost $625, $1,250 and $1,875 in years two through four; an existing IPv4 member gets IPv6 without an added fee, while an IPv6-only member seeking IPv4 enters the IPv4 fee schedule.

The free year comes with an invoice. AFRINIC's published fee schedule gives a new IPv6-only resource member a 100% discount on its first annual membership fee, but only a 50% discount on the allocation fee. For a small LIR taking the listed /32, that table starts with a $2,500 allocation fee and a $2,500 annual membership base. Half the first number is $1,250. The first annual line falls to zero; the entry charge does not.

The staircase then rises by design. AFRINIC lists annual membership discounts of 75% in the second year, 50% in the third and 25% in the fourth. On the table's unchanged /32 base, those are payments of $625, $1,250 and $1,875. After the three subsequent discount years, the listed annual base is $2,500. The registry's IPv6 page repeats the same schedule. It is a memorable recruitment offer: one year without annual dues, followed by a predictable climb toward the ordinary category price.

There is another route into IPv6. A member that already holds IPv4 allocations or end-user assignments pays no additional fee for an issued IPv6 prefix, and AFRINIC excludes that IPv6 prefix from the member's billing-category calculation. The new IPv6-only member pays an entry allocation charge and enters a four-year annual discount sequence. The existing IPv4 member adds IPv6 inside its present membership bill. Same resource family, different membership history, different price path.

The schedule also says an IPv6-only holder requesting more IPv6 resources pays no additional allocation fee. But if that holder later asks for IPv4, AFRINIC charges it as a new IPv4 member under section 2. Additional resources that change a member's category affect the membership fee from the next billing cycle. The choice that matters is therefore not merely whether a network uses IPv6. It is which membership category the registry records before and after each resource request.

AFRINIC's introduction says the fee schedule dates from 2008 unless amended and that the board may validate changes. The current public tables provide the arithmetic above; they do not include invoices or a count of members who have followed the path. An invoice sample or cohort count would show uptake and billing practice. The published design is already plain: it discounts the start of IPv6-only membership, then lets the price rise with time, and prices a later IPv4 request as a new entry into another schedule. The word “free” covers a line item, not the whole doorway.