How to obtain a IP address or block of IP addresses

There are many reasons a person or company will need their own IP address block. An individual could need a static IP for business purposes but may not want to purchase a static from the ISP cause they know it’s not “their IP” for keeps. If you get an IP address or block of IP addresses assigned from your Regional Internet Registry you can keep that IP as you move from ISP to ISP, it’s your IP address! Assignments of IPv4 address space are made to end-user organizations (your business or personal use) for running internal networks, and not for sub-delegation of those addresses outside their organization. This mean you can’t let anyone else use the IP addresses your Regional Internet Registry assigns to you, it’s your own IP address block.

If you have redundant connections to the internet via different internet service providers you will need to contact your Regional Internet Registry to obtain a range of IP addresses. You can then have single or multiple IP ranges broadcast by your ISP as your IP block thus providing you with a multihomed solution. When multihoming takes place you can have one IP address used with two interfaces or ISP connections. With the use of a routing protocol, most commonly BGP, the end-site (your ISP) announces your assigned IP address space to its upstream links. When one of the links fails, the protocol notices this on both sides and traffic is not sent over the failed interface / link any more. You must obtain your own public IP address range or block of IP addresses in order to take advantage of multihoming.

If you need your own IP addresses for your business or otherwise you’ll need to contact one of the five Regional Internet Registries, RIRs.

• American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). The ARIN service region includes Canada, many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands, and the United States.
• LACNIC’s geographical service area includes ARGENTINA, MEXICO, PERU, BRAZIL for a complete list please google LACNIC.
• RIPE NCC’s geographical service area includes BULGARIA, FRANCE, GREECE, ITALY, for a complete list please google RIPE.
• AfriNIC’s geographical service area includes ALGERIA, ETHIOPIA, LIBERIA, SUDAN for a complete list please google AfriNIC.
• APNIC’s geographical service area includes AFGHANISTAN, AUSTRALIA, NEPAL, VIETNAM for a complete list please google APNIC.

We will explore the process of “how to get your own IP address” with ARIN. While I haven’t ever tried the other RIRs I’m sure the process is similar for the other Regional Internet Registries.

Step 1: Requirements
First thing you need to ask yourself is “do I meet the requirements necessary to obtain my own IP addresses”? This really isn’t hard to answer. If you truly plan to use the IP addresses it’s not hard to get them and keeping them is more of a reporting function that anything else. The four basic things you’ll have to do are:
provide data showing efficient utilization of all previous assignments (unless you don’t have previous assignments)
provide data demonstrating a 25% utilization rate of the requested block immediately upon assignment
provide data demonstrating a 50% utilization rate of the requested block within one year
provide verification your organization intends to multi-home using the requested block (a network diagram will suffice)

Step 2: Submit Request

The next two forms you’ll need to fill out to procure your IP address or IP addresses are the:

POC https://www.arin.net/resources/templates/poc.txt this is to Register a Point of Contact (POC) record in ARIN’s database.
Organization https://www.arin.net/resources/templates/org.txt this is to Register an Org ID in ARIN’s database.

Step 3: Verification
Okay now ARIN has the data and will make sure it’s all filled out right. So don’t waste time here.. it’s a simple double and triple check of the form. Make sure its filled out right before you submit your request to get IP addresses.

Step 4: Review Process
ARIN will respond to requests within two (2) business days. We may request additional information. For each question and response cycle, ARIN will respond within two (2) days. If you do not reply within ninety (90) days, the ticket will be closed. Just don’t get the forms wrong. Be sure to include all the needed information to obtain your IP addresses.

Step 5: Officer Certification
Prior to approval, ARIN will send an e-mail with all data received on the request to an officer of the company for certification.

Step 6: Request Approval
ARIN notifies the submitter of request approval, via e-mail. The approval is good for ninety (90) days. If your organization does not follow up on the approval within that time, you will need to resubmit your request.

Step 7: Fees & Registration Services Agreement
ARIN charges a one-time registration fee for each resource assignment, based on the size of the assignment. Double check this data but last time I checked here was the going rate for Initial IP Allocation Space Assignment

Size Category	Fee (US Dollars)	Block Size
X-small	$1,250	smaller than /20
Small	$2,250	/20 to /19
Medium	$4,500	larger than /19, up to and including /16
Large	$9,000	larger than /16, up to and including /14
X-large	$18,000	larger than /14

For more details on this process please see ARINS website @ www.arin.net