APNIC (the Asia
Pacific Network Information Centre) is the regional Internet address registry
(RIR) for the Asia-Pacific region, service 56 economies, including India,
Bangladesh, China, Australia, Japan and others. APNIC is one of the world's
five RIRs and is part of the Number Resource Organization (NRO).
As of date, the following 7 NIRs
(National Internet Registries) are registered with APNIC for serving the local community
[i] [ii] [iii]--
APNIC
Membership is classified into 7 tiers depending on the IP holding by each
member. Each membership tier has voting rights. These voting rights play a
crucial role in governance and policies matters of APNIC.
For IPv4 address space, the
membership tier is assessed as follows:
Membership tier
|
IPv4 Holding
|
Associate
|
None
|
Very
Small
|
Up
to and including /22
|
Small
|
Greater
than /22, up to and including /19
|
Medium
|
Greater
than /19, up to and including /16
|
Large
|
Greater
than /16, up to and including /13
|
Very
Large
|
Greater
than /13, up to and including /10
|
Extra
Large
|
Greater
than /10
|
For
IPv6 address space, the membership tier is assessed as follows:
Membership tier
|
IPv6 Holding
|
Associate
|
None
|
Very Small
|
Up to and including /35
|
Small
|
Greater than /35, up to and including /32
|
Medium
|
Greater than /32, up to and including /29
|
Large
|
Greater than /29, up to and including /26
|
Very Large
|
Greater than /26, up to and including /23
|
Extra Large
|
Greater than /23
|
Membership tier
|
Number of votes
|
Associate
|
1
|
Very
Small
|
2
|
Small
|
4
|
Medium
|
8
|
Large
|
16
|
Very
Large
|
32
|
Extra
Large
|
64 |
As per the Membership
tier voting chart, every member can have a max of 64 votes (including NIRs) but
APNIC charges an additional 190% premium on the annual membership fees from
NIR, which leads to effective membership fees for NIRs equals to 290% of the
ordinary membership fee[vi], but
with no added advantage of voting rights. Members of NIR didn’t get the voting
rights in APNIC, even though they pay the fees to NIR and indirectly pay to
APNIC, as NIR pays to APNIC as per resources holdings of all its members plus
an additional 190% premium over and above of ordinary fee.
Top economies (and
NIRs) based on the voting rights under APNIC region (as of 11th Nov
2021) [vii]–
Country
|
No.
of APNIC Members
|
Voting
Rights
|
Average
vote per member
|
Rank
(as per voting rights)
|
|
|
|
|
|
AU
|
2015
|
7032
|
3.49
|
1
|
HK
|
949
|
3733
|
3.93
|
2
|
BD
|
1067
|
3442
|
3.23
|
3
|
IN*
|
608
|
2434
|
4.00
|
4
|
SG
|
391
|
1728
|
4.42
|
5
|
CN*
|
310
|
1666
|
5.37
|
6
|
NZ
|
447
|
1657
|
3.71
|
7
|
AP
|
419
|
1633
|
3.90
|
8
|
JP*
|
316
|
1258
|
3.98
|
9
|
MY
|
313
|
1228
|
3.92
|
10
|
PH
|
284
|
1078
|
3.80
|
11
|
TH
|
223
|
1046
|
4.69
|
12
|
PK
|
262
|
932
|
3.56
|
13
|
ID*
|
89
|
484
|
5.44
|
14
|
TW*
|
55
|
305
|
5.55
|
18
|
VN*
|
2
|
65
|
32.50
|
27
|
Average
vote per member across top 13 economies
|
4.20
|
(Vietnam is not
included while calculating the average vote per member because VN has only 2 members,
VNNIC and “VN Post and Telecommunications”, and including VN while calculating average
votes, leads to changing of figures from 4.20 to 5.97 as VNNIC has 64 votes).
* Economies
which have NIRs are star marked
If every
resource holder (doesn’t matter whether membership is with RIR and NIR) has
voting rights in APNIC, then the voting rights table will change to (average
votes per member are 4.20, as calculated above. Here, I am taking 2 votes per
NIR member for conservative calculation and 3 votes per NIR member for more realistic
calculation) –
Adding this
vote count with the existing voting rights which every economy has, the results
would be like this –
Country
|
Total
Member
(APNIC+NIR)
|
Voting
Rights
(Average 2 votes per NIR per member)
|
Voting
Rights
(Average 3 votes per NIR per member)
|
|
|
|
|
AU
|
2015
|
7032
|
7032
|
HK
|
949
|
3733
|
3733
|
BD
|
1067
|
3442
|
3442
|
IN*
|
3976
|
9170
|
12538
|
SG
|
391
|
1728
|
1728
|
CN*
|
1709
|
4464
|
5863
|
NZ
|
447
|
1657
|
1657
|
AP
|
419
|
1633
|
1633
|
JP*
|
790
|
2206
|
2680
|
MY
|
313
|
1228
|
1228
|
PH
|
284
|
1078
|
1078
|
TH
|
223
|
1046
|
1046
|
PK
|
262
|
932
|
932
|
ID*
|
3005
|
6316
|
9232
|
TW*
|
354
|
903
|
1202
|
VN*
|
626
|
1313
|
1937
|
The new Ranking
of the economies will change like this (based on 2 votes per NIR member) –
Country
|
Rank
|
|
|
IN*
|
1
|
AU
|
2
|
ID*
|
3
|
CN*
|
4
|
HK
|
5
|
BD
|
6
|
JP*
|
7
|
SG
|
8
|
NZ
|
9
|
AP
|
10
|
VN*
|
11
|
MY
|
12
|
PH
|
13
|
TH
|
14
|
PK
|
15
|
TW*
|
16
|
In this
scenario, I have considered every NIR member have 2 voting rights, on an
average (which is more towards the conservative side), and the results are as -
AU is no more in top position and Indonesia rises from 14th position
to 3rd position, similarly, China rises from 6 to 4th and
Vietnam rises from 27th to 11th position. So, If APNIC
gives fair chances to the countries where NIR is doing great work in the expansion
of the Internet, then ID and VN will get the maximum benefits concerning the
voting rights.
Now, let’s see
what will be the ranking status, if I consider an average of 3 votes per NIR
member (which is more on the realistic side) –
Country
|
Rank
|
|
|
IN*
|
1
|
ID*
|
2
|
AU
|
3
|
CN*
|
4
|
HK
|
5
|
BD
|
6
|
JP*
|
7
|
VN*
|
8
|
SG
|
9
|
NZ
|
10
|
AP
|
11
|
MY
|
12
|
TW*
|
13
|
PH
|
14
|
TH
|
15
|
PK
|
16
|
In this case, India
will rise from 4th to 1st position, Indonesia rises from
14th position to 2nd position, China rises from 6 to 4th,
Vietnam rises from 27th to 8th position and Taiwan rises
from 18th to 13th position.
Current
position across RIRs w.r.t. Voting Rights
Only APNIC and
LACNIC have the concept of NIRs. As mentioned above, APNIC has 7 NIRs and
LACNIC has 2 NIRs, namely, Brasil (Registro.br) and México (IAR.MX).
As per info
available here - https://www.lacnic.net/76/2/lacnic/bylaws,
every member, whether a direct LANIC member or a member of mentioned two NIRs, have
the voting rights in LACNIC.
I think it’s a high time to update APNIC membership and voting policy rules and
guidelines, and allow NIR members also to participate in APNIC policies. This
will also help APNIC in expanding the user base and can be helpful in avoiding
the hostile takeover type of situation, which we have recently saw in AFRINIC.
[iv] Member info is
picked from the respective
slides of NIR of APNIC 52 conference
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