6. International cooperation

6.1 What is APNIC?

APNIC is an abbreviation for Asia Pacific Network Information Center. From the name it is clear that APNIC is closely related to JPNIC. The relation among the present international NIC is given below.

                          IANA
                            |
           +----------------+---------------------+
           |                |                     |
        RIPE NCC          APNIC               InterNIC
        (Europe)         (Asia pacific)       (North America)
                            |
                 +------+---+------+-----------+
                 |      |          |           |
               JPNIC  KRNIC      AUNIC        Other Countries*
              (Japan) (Korea)   (Australia)


   IANA which is an abbreviation for Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
   is the committee for Internet society, and it not only assigns IP
   addresses but also allocates/controls various numbers and key-words.
   The allocations given by IANA are documented in the RFC named ASSIGNED
   NUMBERS. (Because of regular updates, please refer to the latest RFC.)

   RIPE NCC (Europe), APNIC (Asia pacific) and InterNIC (North America)
   are under IANA.  NIC is known as NCC (Network Coordination Center) in 
   Europe.  RIPE is an abbreviation for Reseaux IP Europeans.  InterNIC
   controls the countries which are not covered by NIC.  Therefore, the
   responsibility of InterNIC is not limited to North America only.

   NIC of countries like JPNIC (Japan), KRNIC (Korea), AUNIC (Australia)
   are under APNIC.  As the number of NIC organizations in Asia Pacific
   regions are still small, APNIC directly assigns the IP addresses to
   those countries that do not have NIC organizations.

6.2 Relation between JPNIC and APNIC

   The IP addresses that JPNIC allocates to the organizations within
   Japan are actually assigned to JPNIC by APNIC which maintains the
   the block of IP addresses meant for Asia pacific regions.  JPNIC
   applies for new block of addresses whenever there is a shortage.
   In this way the activities of JPNIC are closely related to APNIC.

   APNIC started its activity as a pilot project from 93/9, and since
   then JPNIC is cooperating with it.  In details, APNIC has its WG in
   JPNIC and out of the activities of APNIC, in particular, the members
   of APNIC-WG play an important role for allocating IP addresses.
   NIC of each country takes part in APNIC activities and the members of
   Japan are mainly in charge of assigning IP addresses.  KRNIC is in
   charge of Information Service.  In the same way, AUNIC maintains the
   DNS of APNIC.

   Although, JPNIC is supporting the activities of APNIC, due to the
   rapid growth of Internet in Asia Pacific regions, the application
   for IP address is also increasing sharply.  It is largely hoped,
   that the NIC of each country will get organized, and the experiences
   that JPNIC has experienced from network administration are expected
   to be utilized in other countries.

6.3 Status of IP address allocation by APNIC

   The following graph shows the present status of IP address allocation 
   by APNIC from 94/4/14 to 94/10/27.  Japan, Korea and Australia have
   their own country NIC, therefore it is not necessary to assign a class
   C address to each applicant.  However, the applications for Class B
   addresses from country NIC are screened thoroughly and they are assigned
   individually.  Blocks of IP addresses are assigned to the countries that
   have their own country NIC, here each block contains 256 IP addresses.
   The addresses maintained by country NIC are also covered in this graph.
   The IP address allocation to Australia was yet to be carried out during
   the above mentioned period.