Summary

  • LACNIC's policy register marked LAC-2026-5, a proposed route for recovering unjustified legacy resources, “Did not reach consensus” on 11 November 2026.
  • LACNIC's Board-led call still gives legacy IPv4 holders until 16 December to contact the registry; its published consequence is cessation of registration services after non-contact or a failed right-of-use review.

The policy clock stopped two days ago. The administrative clock did not. LACNIC's policy system now records that version one of LAC-2026-5 failed to reach consensus on 11 November. A separate page announcing the Board's June call still tells legacy IPv4 holders to make contact by 16 December. Anyone reading the two pages as one instrument gives the registry a power the public policy process has not granted.

The defeated proposal would have added section 7.6 to LACNIC's policy manual. To keep receiving services, a legacy holder would have needed to participate in formalisation, justify its right to use the resources, announce and use them, maintain reverse DNS, and keep allocation and abuse-contact data current. If those conditions failed, the proposed text said the Board may initiate recovery procedures. That sentence is the prize in this contest: a possible route from registry evidence to a change in resource control. The policy register says the community did not give it consensus.

The Board's existing call is narrower and immediate. Issued on 16 June, it asks organizations that hold or use legacy IPv4 to identify themselves and contact registration services. LACNIC says it will request documents and review each case. Its published consequence for silence or an unsuccessful right-of-use review is that the registry will cease providing registration services to the organization. The page does not say that the failed section 7.6 has become policy, and it does not describe a completed resource recovery.

Service withdrawal and resource recovery are different actions with different consequences for a holder and the networks that depend on its records.

This distinction matters more than the usual conference-room argument about who supports accurate Whois data. A holder might need an updated contact, reverse DNS maintenance or documentation. The proposal tried to make such conditions part of a recovery trigger. The Board call makes document review and the service relationship concrete now. Put the two together carelessly and the registry's service desk starts to look like a legislature with a routing table in its pocket.

The public record supplies no case-by-case list of contacted holders, documents rejected or services stopped. Those facts would show how the June call is being applied. Today the certain result is simpler: a policy proposal lost consensus while a separate institutional deadline remains on the calendar. Holders should read the 16 December notice for the steps it actually announces; observers should read the policy register for the authority it did not confer.

Sources: LACNIC policy register; LAC-2026-5 record; LACNIC's legacy-resource call.