ASO, NRO

Participation in the International Community

At a global level, in addition to the LACNIC organization that provides services for Latin America and the Caribbean, there are four other Regional Internet Registries that provide services in different regions: AfriNIC, the Regional Registry most recently recognized by ICANN, provides services in the African region; APNIC covers the Asia-Pacific region; ARIN services North America and part of the Caribbean; and RIPE NCC covers Europe and the-Middle-East.

ASO

The ICANN Address Supporting Organization (ASO) was formally established on 19 October 1999 when ICANN and the heads of APNIC, ARIN, and the RIPE NCC (the three existing Regional Internet Registries or RIRs) signed a Memorandum of Understanding.  The RIRs had proposed the formation of the ASO on 23 July 1999 in a letter to the ICANN interim chair.

The creation of the ASO brought ICANN into the already existing and fully functional system of global policymaking for global address space issues that existed among the RIRs. The existence of the RIRs predates the existence of ICANN.

The ASO Address Council (AC), made up of three representatives from each regional registry, is in charge of supervising and developing recommendations on IP addressing policies and advising ICANN's board of directors on these matters. Another important role of the address council is to appoint two members to ICANN's board of directors.

Of the three members of the ASO AC, two are elected by each regional registry's public forum, while the third is appointed by each regional registry's board of directors.

Currently, the representatives of the region covered by LACNIC to the ASO AC are as follows:

* Appointed by LACNIC's board of directors.

Former Members

ASO Review

NRO

To provide a visible framework for cooperative joint activities, the RIRs (APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC and the RIPE NCC) formed the Number Resource Organization (NRO) on 24 October 2003.

On 21 October 2004 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the NRO and ICANN.  This MoU establishes that the NRO fulfils the role, responsibilities and functions of the ASO as defined within the ICANN bylaws.   Following its official recognition as an RIR, AFRINIC became the fifth member of the NRO on 27 April 2005, and thus a party to the MoU between ICANN and the NRO.

The main goals of the NRO are:

• to protect unallocated address space
• to promote and protect an open and participative policy development process
• to act as a mechanism for coordinating regional registries on matters of common interest
• to act as a focal point between RIRs and the Internet community in general

Relevant pages related to this session:

• ASO
• NRO
• ASO / NRO
• Memorandums of Understanding
• Elections