BGP. CIDR. NRO. NRPM. SWIP. These are just a few of the acronyms commonly used by members of the Internet and ARIN communities. So what do all these combinations of letters mean? This Acronym Guide spells out some of the most frequently used terms.
Internet Community Organization Names
| Abbr |
Meaning |
| AFRINIC |
African Network Information Centre |
| AGWG |
ARIN Government Working Group |
| APNIC |
Asia Pacific Network Information Centre |
| ARIN |
American Registry for Internet Numbers |
| ARPA |
Advanced Research Projects Agency |
| ASO |
Address Supporting Organization |
| ASO AC |
ASO Address Council |
| CANTO |
Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations |
| CITEL |
Inter-American Telecommunication Commission |
| CTU |
Caribbean Telecommunications Union |
| IAB |
Internet Architecture Board |
| IANA |
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority |
| ICANN |
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers |
| ICANN GAC |
ICANN Government Advisory Committee |
| IEPG |
Internet Engineering and Planning Group |
| IESG |
Internet Engineering Steering Group |
| IETF |
Internet Engineering Task Force |
| IGF |
Internet Governance Forum |
| ISOC |
Internet Society |
| ITAC |
Internet Technical Advisory Committee |
| ITU |
International Telecommunication Union |
| ITU-T |
ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector |
| LACNIC |
Latin American and Caribbean Internet Address Registry |
| NANOG |
North American Network Operators’ Group |
| NAv6TF |
North American IPv6 Task Force |
| NRO |
Number Resource Organization |
| NRO EC |
NRO Executive Council |
| NRO NC |
NRO Number Council |
| OECD |
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development |
| RIPE |
Réseaux IP Européens |
| RIPE NCC |
RIPE Network Coordination Centre |
| WCIT |
World Conference on International Telecommunications |
| WGIG |
Working Group on Internet Governance |
| WSIS |
World Summit on the Information Society |
| WTSA |
World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly |
| WTFP |
World Telecommunications Policy Forum |
Terms with Specific ARIN or RIR Usage
| Abbr |
Meaning |
| AC |
Advisory Council |
| AUP |
Acceptable Use Policy |
| BoT |
Board of Trustees |
| ENG |
Engineering Department |
| ERX |
Early Registration Transfer Project |
| FSD |
Financial Services Department |
| GMIGS |
General Member in Good Standing |
| IR |
Internet Registry |
| ISP |
Internet Service Provider |
| LIR |
Local Internet Registry |
| MoU |
Memorandum of Understanding |
| NDA |
Nondisclosure Agreement |
| NIR |
National Internet Registry |
| NRPM |
Number Resource Policy Manual |
| ORG ID |
Organization Identifier (also called Org Handle) |
| PDP |
Policy Development Process |
| POC |
Point of Contact |
| PPML |
Public Policy Mailing List |
| RFC |
Request for Comment |
| RIR |
Regional Internet Registry |
| RSA |
Registration Services Agreement |
| RSD |
Registration Services Department |
| WG |
Working Group |
Technical Terms
| Abbr |
Meaning |
| AS |
Autonomous System |
| ASN |
Autonomous System Number |
| BGP |
Border Gateway Protocol |
| CA |
Cryptographic Authentication |
| CIDR |
Classless Inter-Domain Routing |
| CPS |
Certification Practices Statement |
| CRISP |
Cross Registry Information Service Protocol |
| DNS |
Domain Name System |
| DNSSEC |
Domain Name System Security |
| ICMP |
Internet Control Message Protocol |
| IN-ADDR |
Inverse Addressing |
| IP |
Internet Protocol |
| IPv4 |
Internet Protocol version 4 |
| IPv6 |
Internet Protocol version 6 |
| IRIS |
Internet Registry Information Services |
| IRR |
Internet Routing Registry |
| IXP |
Internet Exchange Point |
| LAN |
Local Area Network |
| LSN |
Large-Scale NAT |
| NAT-PT |
Network Address Translation - Protocol Translation |
| NIC |
Network Information Center |
| NOC |
Network Operations Center |
| PA |
Provider Aggregatable |
| PGP |
Pretty Good Privacy |
| PI |
Provider Independent |
| RDAP |
Registration Data Access Protocol |
| ROA |
Route Origin Authorization |
| Reg-RWS |
Registration RESTful Web Service |
| REST |
Representational State Transfer |
| RPKI |
Resource Public Key Infrastructure |
| RPSL |
Routing Policy Specification Language |
| RRDP |
RPKI Repository Data Protocol |
| RWhois |
Referral WHOIS |
| SSL |
Secure Socket Layer |
| SWIP |
Shared WHOIS Project |
| TCP |
Transport Control Protocol |
| UDP |
User Datagram Protocol |
| ULA |
Unique Local Address |
| VLSM |
Variable Length Subnet Mask |
| WAN |
Wide Area Network |
| Whois-RWS |
Whois RESTful Web Service |
| XML |
Extensible Markup Language |
| 6 to 4 |
IPv4 Tunnel for IPv6 Traffic |
