AFRINIC · RIR Watchdog
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BTW reporting and context linked to this RIR. For the proposal-by-proposal history, the people involved and their changing positions, start with Policy.
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The reciprocal bridge AFRINIC drafted before it had a transfer path
A 2018 proposal tried to solve a deceptively practical problem: how two regional registries could recognise the same cross-border resource transfer without mistaking their shared recordkeeping for ownership of the resource. Its best provisions made the ledger follow reality; its…
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What the Simple PDP Update Took Away—and Where Its Discretion Went
AFRINIC’s Simple PDP Update Draft 1 approached process reform with a red pen: shorten notices, move the moment of decision, narrow the objections that counted at Last Call, and make mailing-list participation less subordinate to a meeting room. That subtraction offered a credible…
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The resolution with two numbers: what AFRINIC’s IPv6 PI ratification did — and did not — put into effect
AFRINIC’s August 2018 adoption of an IPv6 provider-independent addressing update removed an obsolete eligibility barrier and added a useful correction route, but the organisation’s own records disagree over the resolution number and show that implementation continued after the…
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Two words, two directions: AFRINIC’s IPv6 sub-assignment redline
On 22 August 2018, the words “semi-permanent connectivity” appeared in an AFRINIC proposal about IPv6 provider-independent assignments. They seemed to tighten a familiar prohibition. Yet the same revision removed a numerical limit, discarded a peculiar restriction on…
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AFRINIC called an interim takedown order a legal confirmation. The order says less
The Mauritius Supreme Court temporarily barred Cloud Innovation from falsely attributing judicial approval to AFRINIC-address leasing and ordered related material removed. AFRINIC then presented that ex parte order as confirmation of a wider legal position. The published ruling…
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The five-day mailbox: when AFRINIC Draft 1 turned contactability into compliance
Two messages, one code and five business days separated a useful registry check from a proposed breach finding. AFRINIC’s first Abuse Contact Policy Update draft began with the practical need for a reachable network-abuse desk, then crossed into prescribing how that desk must…
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The IPv6 door that opened without an IPv4 past
An African enterprise planning a second upstream faces a deceptively simple choice: accept provider-assigned IPv6 and prepare to renumber if the commercial relationship changes, or seek a provider-independent prefix that can preserve its public network identity across both paths.…
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AFRINIC's 2017 accounts: approval before completion
Resolution 201803.403 fixed an important responsibility: AFRINIC's Board approved the 2017 financial statements before the auditors signed their report, then authorised the chief executive and chair to sign both the accounts and a representation letter. That sequence was orderly…
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The seven-year error in AFRINIC’s IPv6 manual
Seven years after newer Internet guidance had displaced an old formula for sizing IPv6 assignments, AFRINIC’s working manual still directed members and staff towards the obsolete text. The proposal that repaired the mistake looked like housekeeping. In fact, it exposed a serious…
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The narrow door through AFRINIC’s secrecy wall
Resolution 201803.402 did something modest but indispensable: it allowed directors and former directors to give an independent investigation committee confidential information that was reasonably necessary for its work. That permission stopped AFRINIC’s own secrecy rule from…
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The Seat That Members Refused to Fill
Resolution 201803.401 solved a real nomination conflict by building a one-seat route back to AFRINIC’s members, but its unwritten bylaw foundation and the Board’s proximity to the candidate gate made refusal—not institutional confidence—the decisive test of legitimacy.
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Ratification was not implementation: the 107-day chain behind AFRINIC’s IPv6 manual repair
A unanimous Board vote on 8 August 2018 settled one institutional question but left two practical jobs visibly unfinished. AFRINIC still had to notify the policy chairs and put the adopted IPv6 reference update into its working manual. The resulting chain—from recommendation to…
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The Forecast at the Registry Door: AFRINIC’s 2018 IPv6 Allocation Rewrite
AFRINIC’s second draft of the IPv6 Initial Allocation Update tried to make the registry fit real networks rather than force every applicant through a narrow service-provider model. It widened who an LIR could serve, allowed evidence for an initial block larger than `/32`, offered…
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The constitution in the quiet room
PDP Bis Draft 3 tried to make AFRINIC’s policy machinery legible: four phases, named objections, reasons at the Board gate and a timed internal appeal. Its clarity was real. So was its deeper problem. A private technical registry can organise deliberation and protect the…
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The Fairer Lottery That Could Not Supply AFRINIC’s Missing Mandate
Draft 6 widened AFRINIC’s proposed random resource-review lottery from a few named membership categories to the entire membership. That was a genuine correction of unequal exposure. Yet a fairer pool cannot answer the prior question: what may a private registry inspect, on whose…
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When a /64 crosses a device boundary but control stays put
A visitor joins an office Wi-Fi network and receives a temporary IPv6 /64 from the organisation that runs the access point, router and upstream link. The address space has reached a third party, but the network has not changed hands. In March 2018, the first draft of AFRINIC’s…
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When resignation waited for a signature: the narrow strength and wider silence of AFRINIC Resolution 201803.397
Two emailed intentions to leave AFRINIC’s leading Board offices created the appearance of a transition before they created an effective one. Resolution 201803.397 handled that immediate problem with unusual care: successors could be chosen, but not activated until signed letters…
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AFRINIC’s 2026 budget reached members after the decision
At AFRINIC’s 2026 annual meeting, members were shown an annual plan that the Board had already approved and were asked to vote on accounts from earlier years. That sequence may fit the company’s Bylaws, but it leaves a harder question unanswered: when nearly all operating revenue…
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The rule beneath the rewrite: AFRINIC’s Draft 2 and the threshold of reverse-DNS cleanup
A resolver is sent to a nameserver that is dead, silent or unable to answer authoritatively. The apparent remedy is modest: correct the parent record so that it no longer points towards a service that is not there. Yet the correction is not consequence-free. In reverse DNS…
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Three edits, one private queue: what Soft Landing BIS Draft 6 clarified
On 22 September 2017, Soft Landing BIS Draft 6 made three recorded repairs: it clarified demonstrated need across exhaustion phases, reworded the recurrence clause, and said that a new IPv6-deployment `/12` replaced the old unforeseen-use `/12`. Those edits mattered because a few…