Request for Unused Class B Internet Numbers

Dear colleagues,

as you certainly know the amount of class B Internet numbers available
for allocation has run quite low.  Before this had become a concern
European organisations have been allocated substantial blocks of class B
network numbers by "the" NIC either for their own use or for
reassignment to other organisations. 

In the meantime the RIPE NCC has taken up the role of European regional
Internet registry.  In the first half year of operation we have
allocated 61 class B networks to European organisations that meet the
criteria established by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). 

In order to ensure fair distribution of the unused class B address space
to the Internet community we ask any organisation in Europe holding
unused class B numbers to return them to us.  We have consulted IANA on
this and it has been agreed that all numbers returned in this manner
will be retained by the RIPE NCC for re-assignemt to European
organisations.  Thus Europe as a whole will not "loose" any address
space.  The NCC will publish a list of all organisations returning
numbers each quarter. 

Also we encourage all organisations currently using class B network
numbers for networks with a few 10s of hosts to consider exchanging
their class B number for a class C number as a service to the community.

Even before this announcement we have already received 7 class B
addresses from Deutsches Forschungsnetz (DFN) and one from an individual
organisation.  We thank them and hope that many of you will follow their
example. 

Daniel Karrenberg
RIPE NCC Manager