Early registration transfer project
When ARIN was formed in December 1997, it inherited the InterNIC database of existing IP addresses and AS numbers, as well as the responsibility to maintain the records contained within. These records became known as early registrations.
Discussions regarding early registrations took place among the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) and throughout their communities. These RIRs included APNIC, ARIN, RIPE NCC, and LACNIC.
The decision was made that the best way to serve the interests of the holders of these early registrations would be to transfer the management of the resources to the applicable RIR according to the region in which the resource holders resided.
![]() | ERX rangesThe ERX project was completed in February 2005. For a list of resources transferred to the APNIC Whois Database during the project: |
Policy changes that affect former ERX ranges
Recovery of unused historical IP addresses
A significant amount of historical address space registered in the APNIC Whois Database is not announced to the global routing table. To recover these globally unrouted resources and place them back in the free pool for reallocation to other networks, APNIC contacted the networks responsible for historical address space in the APNIC region that had not been globally routed since 1 January 1998.
- For more information, see section 5 of the Policies for historical Internet resources in the APNIC Whois Database and the Guide to the recovery of unused address space.
Transferring ERX resources to another network
Holders of historical ERX and AUNIC resources can voluntarily transfer historical resource registrations to current APNIC account holders.
- For more information, please see section 6 of Policies for historical Internet resources in the APNIC Whois Database.
Updating ERX resource registrations in the APNIC Whois Database
To ensure the integrity of information in the APNIC Whois Database, APNIC will not update historical ERX and AUNIC resource information in the APNIC Whois Database until the resource holder can prove the organization's right to the resources and has a formal agreement with APNIC as a member or non-member account holder.
- For more information, please see section 4 of Policies for historical Internet resources in the APNIC Whois Database.
- CNNIC update (PDF, 2.7MB)
- Difficulty for ERX project in KRNIC (PDF, 2.46MB)

