Guide to the recovery of unused address space

Step 1

APNIC identifies historical address space that is not currently being globally routed

The APNIC Secretariat will check the list of historical address ranges against historical routing data available from a prefix announcement database. If addresses from a historical address range have not been routed at all since 1 January 1998, APNIC will begin the process to recover the resources.

Step 2

APNIC notifies the network contacts of the intent to reclaim unrouted resources

The APNIC Secretariat will use the contact details of the admin-c and tech-c for the address range to notify the network of its intent to recover resources.

Step 3

The network responsible for the unrouted resources can choose to return the resources to APNIC or maintain custody

If a network is contacted by APNIC and is notified of APNIC's intention to recover the unrouted resources, the network can choose to:

• Return the address range to APNIC
  If a network is happy to return the resources, the resources will be reclaimed for reallocation in the future. For more information, see step 5 below.

• Maintain custody of the resources
  If a network is using the address range for its internal network or plans to route the address range on the global Internet in the future, the network can inform APNIC that it wishes to retain custody of the resources. The network can choose to take advantage of two other historical resource policies:
  1. If the network needs to update any information about the address range in the APNIC Whois Database, it will be subject to the historical resource protection policy described in section 4 of Historical resources in the APNIC Whois Database. For more information, see: Guide to the maintenance of historical Internet resources.
  2. If the network wishes to transfer the resources to another network, this can be achieved under the transfer of historical resources policy described in section 6 of Historical resources in the APNIC Whois Database. For more information, see: Guide to the transfer of historical Internet resources.

Step 4

If there is no response from a network, APNIC will keep trying to contact the network for one year before reclaiming the resources

At the end of one year, if there is still no response from the network, the address range will be reclaimed.

Step 5

Reclaimed resources will be returned to the free pool for redistribution in the future

The origin of the historical resource will affect what happens to the reclaimed resource:

• The historical resource is an early APNIC or AUNIC allocation
  The inetnum object will be deleted from the database and returned to the free pool for redistribution immediately. Information on historical AUNIC ranges is available at: AUNIC to APNIC migration
• The historical resource is part of the ERX ranges
  The inetnum object will be deleted from the database. The resource will not be redistributed immediately; however, in the future the resource may be redistributed by APNIC or another RIR. More information about ERX ranges is available at: Early Registration Transfer project (ERX)