The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is a non-profit organization that manages the IPv4, IPv6 and Autonomous System Numbers (ASN) for North America, Canada, most of the Caribbean islands and even some outlying areas such as Antarctica and the island of St. Helena.
So what does ARIN really do? ARIN is one out of five Regional Internet Registries responsible for the administration and distribution of Internet addresses. A governing organization is needed to ensure that the limited available IPv4 space gets properly allocated and assigned. In September of 2015 the IPv4 address space that was allocated to the ARIN region depleted, putting companies on a long waiting list with dates going back to as far as 2017.
In December 1997 the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) turned the responsibility for this region over to ARIN, which along with the other 4 registries now manages all of the IPv4 address space available in the world.
Prefixx connects buyers and sellers in the ARIN region to help facilitate fast and secure IPv4 transactions.
If your company is operating within the ARIN region, your first step to an IPv4 transfer wil be creating your ARIN online account. There are a few steps involved with getting your ARIN account properly setup.
Your company needs to be incorporated inside of the ARIN region to qualify for an ORG-ID. ARIN will not accept any entities registered outside of its region, even though they might be operating within. Be prepared to share business registration documents and/or certificates of good standing
Timeline: 1-2 Weeks - Account & POC creation are quick, there is a manual process involved with verifying ORG-ID applications
Once your ORG-ID has been created, you will be ready to move forward with your pre-approval process. Paying for your IPv4 address block is not enough, you'll need to demonstrate a valid need in order to obtain pre-approval and be allowed to transfer a block into your name.
If your company decides to engage Prefixx, you will be assisted with providing the supporting documents and information to obtain pre-approval. Do not make a purchase without pre-approval.
There are different criteria for getting approval, and Prefixx will provide recommendation on how to proceed, based on your infrastructure requirements and business needs.
Timeline: 1-4 Weeks - Being thorough with your application documents will drastically speed up the process and increase your chances of approval
If you've made it to this step, it means that you've likely already established a good relationship with a trusted IPv4 broker. Prefixx can help align your requirements and connect you with qualified buyers. As part of our process, all offers we present you with will have passed our Tixx by Prefixx quality control list.
Once you're ready to make your purchase, we'll move forward with the next part of the process. At this point you'll want to make sure you have the following readily available:
Once terms have been agreed upon and funds have been secured in an escrow account, you'll be ready to start the transfer. Your broker should be taking care of everything for you at this point.
Transfers are different with every registry. ARIN requires transfer tickets to be opened by both the buying and the selling side of the transaction. ARIN does not work with transfer agreements and any disclosure of the terms of the deal is not required.
Most of the work is done by the seller at this point. The seller might be asked to submit payment for an invoice to ARIN, and will need to sign and notarize an ARIN drafted form of acknowledgement. If you're a first time buyer with no pre-existing allocations, you will be asked by ARIN to sign their registration services agreement (RSA) and pay an annual membership fee in accordance with the ARIN fee schedule.
Once your transfer ticket is approved, ARIN financial services will conduct a final review. At this point you may expect to receive your IPv4 address block within 24-72 hours. Receipt of your block concludes the transaction and initiates the release of the funds to the seller.
Timeline: 2-6 Weeks - Regional ARIN transfers complete within as little as 2 weeks, where as inter-RIR transfers may take up to 6 weeks to complete
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