Summary

  • ARIN’s 28 October 2026 transfer row starts with Wilkes University’s 146.94.192.0/18, registered on 29 January 1991, and sends only 146.94.192.0/19—8,192 of the original 16,384 addresses—to SERVERNET INTERNET LIMITED in the RIPE NCC region.
  • Current ARIN RDAP lists the adjacent 146.94.224.0/19 for Wilkes University as DIRECT ALLOCATION. RIPE NCC RDAP lists the transferred 146.94.192.0/19 for SERVERNET INTERNET LIMITED as LEGACY. The two live objects meet at a clean numerical boundary.

Half a block is still a whole institutional decision. On 28 October, ARIN’s original transfer file recorded Wilkes University as source and SERVERNET INTERNET LIMITED as recipient of an inter-RIR RESOURCE_TRANSFER. The original range runs from 146.94.192.0 through 146.94.255.255. The transferred range stops at 146.94.223.255. Normalize the file’s zero-padded octets and the arithmetic is plain: a /18 of 16,384 IPv4 addresses became two adjacent /19s of 8,192 each. The lower half crossed into the RIPE NCC register. The upper half stayed under ARIN.

The record carries a date older than either registry’s current software: the source registration is 1991-01-29T05:00:00Z. That field records the age of the source registration. It does not identify the agency that made an allocation in 1991. The specific transfer date is thirty-five years later.

Two live RDAP answers now finish the split. ARIN’s object for the upper half spans 146.94.224.0146.94.255.255, names WILKES1, marks the resource DIRECT ALLOCATION and names Wilkes University as registrant. It preserves a 29 January 1991 registration date and shows a change on 28 October 2026. RIPE NCC’s object for the lower half spans 146.94.192.0146.94.223.255, names UK-SERVERNET-19910129, marks it LEGACY, sets GB, and names SERVERNET INTERNET LIMITED through its organisation object. Its own registration timestamp is 28 October 2026. The old date survives in the literal network name; the object itself is new.

The two labels are a feature of two registries’ present records, not an invitation to rewrite 1991. DIRECT ALLOCATION describes the Wilkes object ARIN currently serves. LEGACY is the status on the newly created RIPE object. The RIPE inter-RIR procedure says that incoming transfers require RIPE Database updates, including creating resource objects where needed. Here that obligation left a new object with an old-looking name. A network operator can query either half and reach a different registrar and registered holder without relying on a press release.

ARIN’s NRPM section 8.4 supplies the policy route: an IPv4 inter-RIR transfer requires agreeing registries with reciprocal, compatible needs-based rules, while the receiving RIR defines the out-of-region recipient’s conditions. That describes the mechanism; the public row supplies the specific source, recipient, prefix and time. The file gives no consideration or campus-use inventory. A dated agreement or university inventory would answer whether this split changed Wilkes’s operating network or merely the size of its registered holding.

The interesting fact is not that a university address block found a market. It is that the public address book can still draw an exact line through it. One side retains a 1991 registration date in ARIN. The other carries 1991 in its RIPE name but a 2026 object date. Same old source range, different present custodians, no overlap and no numerical gap. For readers who care who may maintain which addresses, that is the story.