Summary

  • AFRINIC proposal AFPUB-2026-IPv4-001-DRAFT02 would return recovered IPv4 resources to the available-space pool only after a default 12-month quarantine.
  • The draft permits a shorter quarantine when available space falls below a /13 or for other operational reasons, but the public record does not identify a released block, release date, checks, approver or resulting pool state.
  • AFRINIC 37 recorded rough consensus and the current-proposals page showed Last call at the 7 September 2026 reporting freeze; neither status establishes ratification or implementation.

The proposal page says AFRINIC entered Soft Landing Phase 2 in 2020 and later recovered more than three million IPv4 addresses. Those are claims in the proposal record, not independently measured figures in this briefing. The same draft would make exhaustion phases irreversible and create a controlled path from “recovered” to “available”.

That path is the operational heart of the proposal. A recovered block would normally remain quarantined for 12 months. AFRINIC could shorten that period if available space fell below a /13, or for other operational reasons. The draft would also allow a reserved /12 to enter the available pool when ordinary available space could not satisfy a request. It would remove identified superseded CPM sections and change two projected-need periods from 12 months to eight months.

The release question is therefore more precise than whether recovered addresses exist. For each block, the public record should make it possible to answer: which exact prefix left quarantine; when did its clock begin; was the default period shortened; why; which cleanup checks were completed; who authorised the transition; and which pool or state received it?

The staff assessment says a 12-month quarantine may be adjusted to six months if necessary and recommends that quarantine remain extensible until cleaning is verified. It identifies blacklist or prior-spam history as cleanup concerns, and recommends documenting and publishing recovery and cleanup criteria and methods. That is a safeguard against treating the end of a calendar period as proof of readiness. A blacklist entry, however, does not by itself prove current abuse, ownership, routing safety or legal entitlement.

The 24 June AFRINIC 37 minutes record rough consensus and say the co-chairs asked the Secretariat to publish a clear recovered-space cleanup procedure and a definition of utilisation during Last call. The minutes also record a warning that absent open and verifiable recovery procedures creates potential legal risk. That is a recorded assessment, not a proven legal conclusion.

A practical answer would be a quarantine exit receipt for every released block. This is BTW analysis and recommendation, not an existing AFRINIC product or a requirement already present in the draft. The receipt should identify the prefix, recovery event, quarantine start and end, any shortened period and its reason, the checks performed, unresolved findings, the approving role, the destination pool or state, and the publication timestamp. It should link each assertion to evidence without exposing information that creates a security or privacy risk.

No source in the frozen record establishes Board ratification, implementation, or release of any named block under this draft. Nor does it establish a current pool balance, a cleanup result, a routing observation, an allocation decision or an implementation date. A receipt would not solve those unknowns retrospectively; it would make future release decisions inspectable.

Publication note: “Published” is the scheduled editorial date, 7 September 2026. The actual server publication time is unset until publish-now.