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AFRINIC
Regional Internet registry for Africa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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AFRINIC (African Network Information Centre) is the regional Internet registry (RIR) for Africa and nearby islands in the Indian Ocean, responsible for allocating and registering Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and autonomous system (AS) numbers in its service region. It also provides related technical and administrative services that support the Internet in Africa. Established in 2004, with headquarters in Ebene, Mauritius, AFRINIC is one of five regional Internet registries that coordinate a fundamental part of the technical infrastructure of the Internet.[3][4]
AFRINIC is a not-for-profit organization with about 2,400 members across 56 countries in its service region.[5][6] Members include Internet service providers, Internet exchange points, governments, academic institutions, and other organizations and businesses that operate networks. AFRINIC allocates IP address space to members, maintains registration databases, develops policies in consultation with members and the wider Internet community, and provides technical training for network operators. AFRINIC charges members annual fees to cover its operational costs.
AFRINIC has had significant organizational and legal problems. In 2019, a news website reported that an AFRINIC staff member had modified the registration information for 4.1 million IPv4 addresses to sell them on the grey market. In 2020, AFRINIC and a member company, Cloud Innovation Ltd, began a series of legal disputes related to IPv4 address allocation, which led to frozen assets, many injunctions, and, in 2022, the dissolution of the AFRINIC board of directors by the Supreme Court of Mauritius. AFRINIC has operated under court-appointed receivership since 2023. In June 2025, the receiver tried to conduct a board election, but halted it due to concerns about election integrity.
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Technical operations and programs
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Internet numbers
As a regional Internet registry, AFRINIC receives large blocks of Internet numbers from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a function of the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).[7] AFRINIC is responsible for the allocation and registration of IP addresses and autonomous system (AS) numbers for network operators in its service region, which includes Africa and part of the Indian Ocean.[8]
AFRINIC manages IPv4 addresses, which are widely-supported but relatively scarce (see IPv4 address exhaustion), along with IPv6 addresses, which are newer and plentiful but not yet supported by all systems (see IPv6 deployment). AFRINIC manages about 6% of the global IPv4 address pool,[9] a smaller amount per capita than other regions.[10]
WHOIS database
The AFRINIC WHOIS database contains registration details of IP addresses and AS numbers allocated by AFRINIC.[11] It shows the organizations that hold the resources, where the allocations were made, and contact details for the networks. Resource holders are responsible for updating their information in the database.[12] The database can be searched by using the web interface on the AFRINIC site or by directing a whois client to whois.afrinic.net (for example, whois -h whois.afrinic.net 196.1.0.0/24).[11]
AFRINIC also supports the Registration Data Access Protocol, the successor to the WHOIS protocol.[13]
Routing security support
Internet Routing Registries (IRR) facilitate Internet traffic and improve security, including by reducing risk of Border Gateway Protocol hijacking.[14] Originally AFRINIC encouraged members to register their Internet number resources in RIPE NCC's IRR.[11] In 2013, AFRINIC established its own IRR.[11] In 2025, staff reported that 1,767 members use AFRINIC's IRR.[2]
AFRINIC supports Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), which also improves the security of Border Gateway Protocol routing.[15] In 2025, staff reported that 720 members have adopted Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), with 11,216 Route Origin Authorizations.[2]
Domain Name System services
AFRINIC enables reverse DNS lookup for its IPv4 and IPv6 address blocks.[16][17] This allows people to look up an IP address allocated by AFRINIC and find any associated domain names in the Domain Name System (DNS).[16][17]
AFRINIC publishes reverse DNS zone data to support Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC).[18]
To improve the resiliency of DNS in its service region, AFRINIC offers secondary DNS hosting services for primary name servers in Africa.[6][19]
Policy development
AFRINIC staff develop its Internet number allocation policies in collaboration with the organization's members as well as the broader Internet community. Representatives from governments, standards organizations, companies, academia, news media, the technical community, civil society, and other not-for-profit organizations all participate in policy development. These representatives are primarily, but not exclusively, from Africa.
The primary forums for policy development are face-to-face public policy meetings and mailing list discussions.[20][21] Each year, AFRINIC conducts two public policy meetings that give members and other stakeholders the chance to come together for policy development, information sharing, and networking. The first public policy meeting of each year is part of the Africa Internet Summit, which is an annual multi-stakeholder event co-organized by the African Network Operators Group,[22] and the second is held as a standalone meeting. The meetings take place in various locations throughout Africa.
Together with the four other regional Internet registries, AFRINIC is part of the Number Resource Organization, which enables the RIRs to coordinate with each other and make joint policy recommendations to ICANN.[23]
Capacity building and partnerships
As part of its capacity building initiatives, AFRINIC conducts training courses for network administrators, network architects, and other network engineers across its service region.[6][24] Workshops include Internet number resource management and implementation of IPv6 networks.[25] AFRINIC also offers online training courses on topics including IPv6 deployment, Internet number resource management, DNSSEC, and RPKI.[6] These courses teach participants to configure, manage, and administer Internet services and infrastructure using current best practices.
In 2007, AFRINIC and the African Telecommunications Union established a partnership to accelerate adoption of IPv6 networks in Africa, due to IPv4 exhaustion, and develop tools to measure Internet performance.[27] AFRINIC has supported the deployment of regional root name server copies that are compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6.[6][28]
AFRINIC and the Internet Society have worked together to train staff of Internet exchange points and Internet service providers to support routing more of Africa's internet traffic within the continent instead of externally.[29][30] The organizations have also partnered on measurement initiatives to evaluate Internet performance and reliability across Africa.[31][32] For example, they built a route analysis tool to learn about and monitor the amount of interconnection between Internet exchange points within Africa.[33]
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Organization
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As required by ICANN policy for regional Internet registries, AFRINIC is a non-profit, non-governmental, community-led entity, without formal backing from governments or politicians.[34][35] The relevant ICANN policy is Internet Coordination Policy 2 (ICP-2), "Criteria for Establishment of New Regional Internet Registries".[34]
Service region
AFRINIC's service region is the continent of Africa and adjacent islands in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, including Madagascar.[36] It is divided into six sub-regions to ensure regional representation on the board of directors: Eastern Region, Western Region, Central Africa, Northern Africa, Southern Africa, and Indian Ocean.[36]
Board of directors
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The AFRINIC bylaws prescribe a nine-member board of directors.[37] Six directors are elected to represent the six sub-regions, and two directors are elected based on professional expertise.[37] The last seat on the board is filled by the chief executive officer.[37]
AFRINIC members elect directors at annual general member meetings, normally in May or June.[37] The organization's bylaws define quorum for this meeting as the presence of four regional directors, one non-regional director, and five members.[37] Members vote on-site at the meeting and prior to the meeting via online voting.[38] The elected directors serve three-year terms.[39]
The directors elect a chair of the board and a vice-chair.[37] The directors appoint a chief executive officer, which is a staff role.[37]
Council of Elders
The AFRINIC Council of Elders, which consists of up to six former board chairs, advises the board.[37] The council is not elected by organization members.[40] In 2023, the Council of Elders consisted of Nii N. Quaynor, Pierre S. Dandjinou, Viv Padayatchy, Maimouna Ndeye Diop Diagne, and Christian Bope.[41]
Staff
AFRINIC staff carry out the daily operations of the organization, including technical and administrative responsibilities. The staff is structured in several departments: CEO's Office, Finance and Accounting, People and Productivity, Capacity Building, Communications and Public Relations, Infrastructure and Security, Member Services, Registry Products, Stakeholder Development, and Value Added Services.[42]
Members
Membership is open to individuals, companies, organizations, and governments that are based in and providing services in Africa.[37] Members include Internet service providers, Internet exchange points, data centers, universities, banks, governments, and individuals.[43][44]
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History
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Formation
Before AFRINIC formed, IP addresses (IPv6 and IPv4) for Africa were distributed by the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), and the RIPE NCC.
At an INET workshop in Malaysia in 1997, participants developed a proposal for an African regional Internet registry.[45] An initial board of trustees came together in 2001, chaired by Nii Quaynor.[45]
The organization was established as an organization in Mauritius, with plans for technical operations in South Africa, backup and disaster recovery in Egypt, and training coordination in Ghana.[34] ICANN gave AFRINIC provisional approval in October 2004.[46] The registry became operational in February 2005.[35] ICANN gave it final recognition in April 2005.[34][47] Adiel Akplogan served as the founding CEO and stayed as CEO until 2015.[48]
IPv4 exhaustion process (2017–present)
IANA delegated relatively few IPv4 address blocks to AFRINIC, but as of 2015 AFRINIC had a relatively large amount of IPv4 address space that it had not yet allocated to network operators.[10] In April 2017, AFRINIC became the last regional Internet registry to run down to its last /8 block of IPv4 addresses, thus triggering the final phase of its IPv4 exhaustion policy. As a result, AFRINIC then implemented a soft landing policy for allocating the last /8 to its users, in which, since Phase 2 of the exhaustion period (started in January 2020[49]), each AFRINIC customer was eligible for one final maximum allocation of a /22 block of IPv4 addresses until the block was exhausted.[50] In 2025, staff said that about 0.06% of their /8 IPv4 addresses remain available, about 1 million addresses.[2]
Sexual harassment and bullying complaint in 2018
In March 2018, the RIR's head of external relations, Vymala Poligadu, alleged that the board chair, vice chair, and head of the financial department had planned to get her fired from her position.[51] She also alleged that the board chair, Sunday Folayan, had sexually harassed a staff member.[51] In response to a member complaint about high staff turnover, an anonymous person leaked an internal document with details of Poligadu's accusations to the organization's discussion mailing list.[51] An independent Investigation Committee found evidence of one incident of harassment but not "bullying or intimidation".[51][52] It also found that Folayan breached his non-disclosure agreement.[51][52] Folayan and the vice-chair resigned from their positions.[51] Many members criticized the Investigation Committee findings and the board's handling of the allegations.[40] In the May 2018 board election, a majority of voters chose the "none of the above" option as a protest vote.[40]
Theft of IP address space reported in 2019
Starting as early as 2013, AFRINIC IP addresses were misused to forward spam.[53][54] In 2016 and 2017, independent researcher Ronald Guilmette notified AFRINIC of suspicious patterns of activity related to AFRINIC IPs.[55][54]
In April 2019, South African technology news website MyBroadband worked with Guilmette to report that an AFRINIC senior staff member, Ernest Byaruhanga, had stolen 4.1 million IPv4 addresses over the previous several years.[56][57] MyBroadband initially estimated the market value of the theft as US$54,000,000 and revised their estimate to US$80,000,000.[56][58] IPv4 addresses are a public resource, not a private asset, but companies value them because many networks and systems do not yet support the more abundant IPv6 addresses.[53][56] Companies and organizations sometimes sell or lease their unused IPv4 allocations to other entities.[59] In this case, Byaruhanga changed WHOIS registration records to reassign IPv4 address blocks from their rightful holders to companies that purchased the blocks on the grey market.[53][56] Some of the legitimate owners were inactive, and many of the IP addresses were unused before they were taken.[55][56] Many of the stolen addresses were used to host gambling and pornography websites aimed at people in China.[60]
In July 2019, CEO Alan Barrett resigned from his role.[61] Eddy Kayihura became CEO in October 2019.[62] Kayihura arranged for the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) to help AFRINIC with investigating the reports of theft.[63]
In December 2019, Kayihura dismissed Byaruhanga from the organization for theft of IP address space.[64] AFRINIC also filed criminal charges against Byaruhanga.[65][66] Between January and July 2020, AFRINIC worked to reclaim stolen IP address blocks, correct WHOIS records, and improve internal security measures.[57][66][67]
In August 2020, AFRINIC said that Afri Holdings Ltd, Netstyle A. Ltd, and Elad Cohen applied for an injunction against AFRINIC.[68][57] MyBroadBand reported that Cohen was connected to misappropriated IP address space.[69] In early 2021, Logic Web Inc initiated legal action against AFRINIC after AFRINIC reclaimed IP address space from the company.[70]
Beginning of legal disputes with Cloud Innovation Ltd in 2020
In June 2020, AFRINIC notified Cloud Innovation, a company registered in Seychelles and led by Hong Kong-based businessman Lu Heng, that the company had breached its Registration Service Agreement with AFRINIC.[59] The concern was unrelated to Byaruhanga's theft of IP addresses.[60] AFRINIC alleged that Cloud Innovation had broken their registration agreement in multiple ways, including by leasing IPv4 addresses to entities outside of the AFRINIC service region.[59][71] Cloud Innovation's business partner, Larus Limited, a company based in Hong Kong also owned by Lu, leases IP addresses to customers such as China Telecom and China Mobile.[60][71][72] Cloud Innovation contested the complaint on multiple grounds and said it had not broken any rules.[59][60] AFRINIC responded in March 2021 with related requests, and Cloud Innovation rejected the requests.[59][vague]
In early July 2021, AFRINIC froze 6.2 million IP addresses it had assigned to Cloud Innovation between 2013 and 2016.[60][73][59] Cloud Innovation sued AFRINIC to remove the restrictions on its IP address space and sought US$80,000,000 in damages for defamation.[60][59] The Supreme Court of Mauritius ordered the provisional freezing of up to US$50,000,000 in AFRINIC bank accounts.[60][59] Since AFRINIC had less than US$50,000,000 in its accounts, all of its assets were frozen.[74] On 15 July 2021, due to a court order, AFRINIC restored Cloud Innovation's IP address blocks.[75] However, AFRINIC bank assets remained frozen until 15 October 2021, when the Mauritius High Court granted the removal of the freezing order.[76] Cloud Innovation filed several additional lawsuits related to organizational operations.[4][vague]
Lobbying
In addition to Cloud Innovation, Lu is associated with the Number Resource Society (NRS), a lobbying group established in 2021 that has extensively criticized AFRINIC in online publications and videos.[77][71] NRS has advocated for changing the entire regional Internet registry system to a market-based system that allows private ownership and unrestricted sales of IP address space.[71] Lu has also financed the website Blue Tech Wave Media (BTW Media), which has argued for private ownership of IP addresses, criticized ICANN, and made claims about AFRINIC elections.[78]
Dissolution of the board in 2022
In early June 2022, AFRINIC's annual board election process involved several disputes and lawsuits, resulting in almost half the board seats becoming vacant and staying vacant.[79][74] Cloud Innovation and Crystal Web, a former Internet service provider in South Africa that leases out IP address space through one of Lu's companies,[74] filed lawsuits that blocked procedural aspects of the election process.[74][80] On 30 June 2022, the Supreme Court of Mauritius ruled that AFRINIC's board of directors was invalid, because the CEO had continued to run AFRINIC without a quorum.[79]
In July 2022, the Number Resource Organization (an organization of the five regional Internet registries, affiliated with ICANN) sent a letter to the Mauritius government that described Cloud Innovation's 25 lawsuits against AFRINIC as "an attempt to cause irreparable harm to the core functions of AFRINIC", said "it would be very unfortunate for the African regional community if the above situation proves that the designation of Mauritius as the place to locate AFRINIC has been wrong", and asked the government to recognize AFRINIC as an international organization.[81][77] The chair of the RIPE Address Policy Working Group criticized the letter for not respecting Mauritius self-governance.[77]
AFRINIC requested the Supreme Court of Mauritius to dismiss Cloud Innovation's lawsuits as vexatious, but in August 2022, the court ruled against the dismissal and allowed the lawsuits to continue.[79] The judge concluded that the lawsuits were caused by the registry's "determination... to terminate (the plaintiff's) membership" and did not find evidence that the lawsuits were vexatious.[79]
The CEO's contract expired in November 2022 and could not be renewed due to the lack of a complete board.[82][1] Since 2022, without a CEO or board, the staff have continued to conduct basic operations, but the organization has come close to not being able to pay staff.[82] In April 2023, some companies said their applications for address allocations were not getting processed in a timely manner.[83] John Curran, CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers, said AFRINIC's lack of formal leadership also made it difficult for the staff to respond to lawsuits.[82] Since the remaining elected directors did not have quorum to hold new elections, their three-year terms eventually expired.[80][84]
Court-appointed receivership (2023–present)
In March 2023, Cloud Innovation petitioned the court to place AFRINIC into receivership.[74] The court ruled to establish receivership in September 2023, and it appointed a receiver, Vasoodayven Virasami.[74][84] The court directed him to maintain the ordinary operations of the organization and conduct a board election within six months.[74][84] The Number Resource Organization (affiliated with ICANN) supported the receivership as a mechanism to "restore AFRINIC to functional governance".[85] The Internet Governance Project, affiliated with American university Georgia Tech, also supported the receivership.[86]
However, a former director of AFRINIC appealed the receivership in late September 2023, which blocked the election process until the court dismissed the appeal in October 2024.[80] Upon the dismissal of the appeal, the court ordered the receiver to conduct a board election within two months, by the end of 2024.[80] This did not happen.[87]
In February 2025, the court appointed a new receiver, Gowtamsingh Dabee.[88]
Prompted by AFRINIC's problems and risks, between 2023 and 2025 the Number Resource Organization revisited the criteria and guidance for regional Internet registries.[89][83] They requested public input for Internet Coordination Policy 2 (ICP-2), including to establish processes for de-registering and reforming a regional Internet registry if it cannot function.[89][83]
Controversies and defamation cases (2023–present)
The Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) February 2023 board election had several challenges, including allegations of code of conduct violations such as threats and intimidation.[90][91] Lu and five other people endorsed by the Number Resource Society (affiliated with Lu) ran for the APNIC board on a reform platform,[92] which made some APNIC members concerned about concentration of power and commercialization of Internet numbers, including because of previous lawsuits and lobbying related to AFRINIC.[82][93][94] None of those candidates won.[87][92]
In May 2023, AFRINIC said the Number Resource Society had given AFRINIC members misleading information about an upcoming AFRINIC board election.[95] No election was planned for 2023.[95]
In 2024, the CEO of an AFRINIC member company said in a court document that a person working for Lu offered to pay for access to his AFRINIC account to vote in future board elections.[80]
In 2024, Lu successfully sued The Daily Telegraph for libel for an article they published about the dispute between Cloud Innovation and AFRINIC, including for claims that Lu was trying to orchestrate the collapse of AFRINIC.[96] In April 2025, Lu sued The Cape Independent, a website in South Africa, after it published an article that was critical of Lu and said he was trying to take control of AFRINIC.[97][87] Both articles were taken down.[87] Lu also filed defamation lawsuits against Noah Maina, Secretary General of the Tanzania Internet Service Providers Association, and Brian Longwe, a company founder, who have spoken about AFRINIC board election processes.[87] In July 2025, Cloud Innovation sent cease and desist letters to people who posted links to a Medium article about the conflict between Cloud Innovation and AFRINIC.[98] American technology news website Techdirt described the company's letters as fitting the pattern of strategic lawsuits against public participation.[98]
Board election in 2025
In April 2025, AFRINIC's receiver, Gowtamsingh Dabee, announced plans to hold an election in June 2025.[99] He appointed barristers from the United Kingdom to chair a nomination committee because of concerns about "potential interferences in the election process".[99] Industry bodies that endorsed candidates for the election included Smart Africa, the South African Network Operators Group, and the Internet Service Providers' Association of South Africa (which all endorsed a similar slate of candidates), along with the Number Resource Society.[100]
In June 2025, the Tanzanian Internet Service Providers Association requested the court to delay the election due to concerns about voting rights, but the court allowed the election to continue.[101] During the week of online voting, ICANN requested the receiver and the court to address potential conflict of interests on the nominating committee, among other concerns about election integrity, and the receiver provided the requested clarifications.[102]
Near the end of in-person voting on 23 June 2025, the receiver suspended voting due to questions about the validity of some votes.[103] Several members who tried to vote in person said they found somebody else had cast their vote without their permission, using fraudulent powers of attorney.[103] Members also alleged fraudulent proxy votes and expressed concerns about lack of transparency for the ballot-counting process.[104] The Mauritius Digital Promotion Agency and a Mauritius telecommunications company, Emtel, filed complaints with the Mauritius Police Force about irregularities in the election.[5][104] On 26 June 2025, the receiver annulled the election and planned to conduct a new election by the end of September.[5][103]
On 3 July 2025, ICANN informed the receiver that ICANN can appoint an emergency replacement to AFRINIC if necessary.[105] Separately, Cloud Innovation filed a lawsuit for the compulsory liquidation of AFRINIC: a petition to the court to dissolve the organization.[78][105] ICANN sent another letter to the receiver that disagreed with Cloud Innovation's effort to dissolve AFRINIC, emphasized that IP addresses are not private assets, and recommended improvements for elections to reduce interference.[106]
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External links
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