Background
The need to change administrative procedures emerged from recognizing that a central system would just not scale. The numerous reasons for that include:
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Massive volume to handle
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Distance of a centralized system from the address space consumers
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Lack of an appropriate global funding structure
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Lack of local community support
RFC 1366 , which described the "growth of the Internet and its increasing globalization", set out the basis for an evolution of the registry process, based on a regionally distributed registry model. This document stressed the need for a single registry to exist in each geographical region of the world (which would be of "continental dimensions"). Registries would be "unbiased and widely recognized by network providers and subscribers" within their region. Each registry would be charged with allocating remaining address space in a manner "compatible with potential address aggregation techniques" (or CIDR).
Four Regional Internet Registries are currently operation in the world:
Reseaux IP Europeens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC):
Established in 1992, the RIPE NCC service region incorporates 109 countries covering Europe , the Middle East , Central Asia , and African countries located north of the equator (the latter will be part of AfriNIC when it is fully operational, see below). RIPE NCC currently consists of more than 3500 members.
Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC):
Established in 1993, APNIC represents the Asia Pacific region, comprising 62 economies. It currently services approximately 1200 member organizations (together with five National Internet Registries (NIRs), in Japan , China , Taiwan , Korea , and Indonesia . The NIRs perform analogous functions to APNIC at a national level).
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN):
In 1993, following several years of explosive Internet growth, the U.S. government decided that network support for the commercial Internet should be separated from the U.S. Department of Defense. A project named InterNIC was founded to provide registration and allocation of domain names and IP address numbers.
Over time, a consensus was reached in the general Internet community to separate the management of domain names from the management of IP numbers, in part to maintain stability of the IP numbering system. As a result, ARIN was established in December 1997. ARIN service region includes 42 countries in North America , a portion of the Caribbean , and sub-equatorial Africa (again, until AfriNIC is fully operational). It currently services more than 2000 member organizations.
Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC):
The newest RIR, established in 2002. It services about 30 countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region.
Emerging RIR
African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC):
The emerging organization that proposed to administer Internet number resources for the continent of Africa . It is expected that African organizations that presently obtain IP address space from RIPE or ARIN will in future obtain IP addresses space from AfriNIC.
