So you’re thinking of applying to APNIC?

Having recently gone through the APNIC application process (and been accepted as a member), I thought it worthwhile writing about it.

6 or so months ago, it was possible for new members to apply for a /21 IPv4. You’d only be given a /22 but you would be added to the waiting list for another /22. Realistically, you’d never have made it to the front of the waiting list and APNIC have now voted to abolish the list so a /22 was the largest allocation you’d get.

However… at the time of writing this, new members can get up to a /23 IPv4 and a /32 IPv6. Not great, but still cheaper than buying on the open market where a /23 would cost you circa $12,000 USD.

Who can apply?

APNIC delegates resources only to organizations, which are legally present, or have networks located in the APNIC region. You must also be able to demonstrate an immediate need for a /24 and be able to demonstrate a detailed plan to use a /23 within a year. It is also significantly beneficial if you are wanting to multihome your network across two or more transit providers.

The above “immediate need for a /24” is an important point – if you are not immediately (as in right now!!) in a position to use the /24 then your application will be rejected. See the below section for info on what you need to do to prove readiness.

What can you apply for?

You can apply for either a /24 or /23 IPv4 and either a /48 or /32 IPv6. Larger allocations of v6 space is likely possible, though you’ll struggle to get more v4 space. You can also apply for an ASN if you need one.

What documentation is asked for?

APNIC ask for a number of bits of documentation in order to prove your legitimacy as a company, your identity as an individual, your immediate need for a /24 and your need for a /23 within 12 months. These are:

• Personal ID for the person applying
• A letter of employment, signed by an Officer, from the company who is making the application. This must state that you, as the individual applying, work for the company and are authorized to represent them in all matters relating to the APNIC application
• Registration documents of the company applying (e.g. a Certificate of Incorporation)
• A bank statement of the company, showing a trading history and a reasonably healthy balance
• Signed order and MSA (e.g. from a colocation provider) showing that your network will be physically located within the APAC region
• Signed order and MSA of transit provider(s), showing you have purchased transit within the APAC region
• Invoice(s) showing that you have already purchased the equipment you will be using within your network. We are using some fairly meaty Juniper kit so this bit didn’t attract much scrutiny – I’d be interested to know how they would respond to something like “we’re going to run BIRD on a couple of old Dell servers”
• A network diagram, showing how your network will be designed and how the equipment on your invoices will be utilized
• A detailed plan to show how you will use a /24 immediately and a /23 within 12 months. Showing how you will subnet your allocation and what each subnet will be used for should suffice
• A list of existing address space your organisation is using (whether it be PA or PI), what that space is being used for and the percentage of that space which is utilized

It is really important to note that your application will be rejected if you don’t have this stuff ready… so don’t bother starting the application until you have it in place.

How much does it cost?

I hope you’ve got a maths degree… because this gets fun. APNICs pricing, at the time of writing, is “inventive”, to say the least. It’s based on a logarithmic value calculated using the number of IP addresses you have. They provide a fees calculator to make it easier.

If you’re going for the maximum initial allocation (/23 v4, /32 v6 and an ASN) you will pay:

• $500 AUD one time sign-up fee
• $1,796 AUD per year membership to cover your IP allocations
• The ASN is free, as are subsequent ASNs, as long as you can justify the usage

The price you pay for addresses is always the larger of the cost of IPv4 and IPv6 space. So, at time of writing, a v4 /23 costs $1,373 AUD/year and a v6 /32 costs $1,796 AUD/year. As such, you pay $1,796.

As such, at time of writing, you will need to pay $2,296 AUD in order to become a member with a /23 v4 and /32 v6.

Allocations

Once you’ve paid the invoice, your allocations will be given to you within 2 days. You will also be able to sign up to the “MyAPNIC” Portal and manage your allocations. APNIC will create a few resources in their whois database for you. These include:

• An aut-num record for the ASN you have been assigned
• An organisation record, detailing your company
• A role record detailing the contact details of your organisation’s administrator
• A mntner record, providing you the ability to maintain your own whois records
• An irt record detailing the contact details that should be used when reporting instances of abuse to you
• inetnum and inet6num records for your allocations

Many of these records will contain the personal contact details of the person making the application. It is advisable to check and adjust them as necessary to, for example, change the e-mail address to a group mailbox.

You should also create some records of your own, in order to allow your transit providers to properly validate your BGP advertisements. These are:

• An as-set object, detailing the “member” AS numbers of the prefixes you will announce. At the very least, this should just contain your own ASN
• One or more route and route6 records for the prefixes you wish to advertise

Whilst creating route/route6 records, you should also enable ROA for the prefixes for RPKI.

Once you’ve created all of this, you should ensure your as-set object is being resolved to the full list of prefixes you wish to advertise. You can do this with bgpq3:

Code block

phil@phil-vm:~$ bgpq3 -J YOUR-AS-SET -4
policy-options {
replace:
 prefix-list NN {
    1.2.3.0/24;
    1.2.4.0/24;
 }
}
phil@phil-vm:~$ bgpq3 -J YOUR-AS-SET -6
policy-options {
replace:
 prefix-list NN {
    2406:7d0::/48;
    2406:7d0:1::/48;
 }
}

Transferring address space

Although not a huge cost, as compared to the other costs of running a network, the APNIC fees for what are relatively small IP allocations can be a bit painful. If you are a member of another RIR (e.g. RIPE or ARIN), you can transfer your IPv4 addresses and ASNs. There is a small fee for this but it would mean not having to pay APNIC membership fees for the second and subsequent years. You cannot transfer IPv6 space so if you intend to transfer your resources, don’t bother applying for v6 space at this time.

Transferred address space is still subject to APNIC policies, so expect people to get upset if you transfer to RIPE and then use the space outside of the APNIC region.

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