[rpd] Questions about IP Allocation rate

[Andrew Alston]

Not Necessarily Ben.

Reality is they could back end Government Networks with V6 and front the
services with V4 which map to the V6 backend.

This would substantially reduce the amount of IPv4 space actually needed by
the governments, and provide dual-stack from the start.  I have serious
doubts that you will find governments in Africa requiring external access
to more than 200+ unique services (which would represent a single /24 on
the front end).

We also need to keep in mind that many government services are now hosted
behind the likes of CloudFlare - specifically for DDoS prevention
mechanisms - and I'm not sure that IPv4 allocations by government entities
are necessarily a good indicator of digital migration, since these services
are not hosted on IPv4 space allocated to those entities.  The same applies
to services hosted in any of the major cloud providers.

Considering the front ending of these services by the DDoS filter providers
and the like - the requirement for front end IPv4 per government in terms
of services to the citizenship is actually relatively small (And certainly
does not warrant reservations at the level they are at - which - as I
pointed out in an earlier message seem to be far higher than what is
actually called for in the CPM)

Thanks

Andrew


On Tue, Oct 14, 2025 at 12:55 PM <ben.roberts at afrinic.net> wrote:

> Owen,
>
> Will that not exclude many of their their citizens from accessing digital
> services?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com>
> *Sent:* 14 October 2025 11:44
> *To:* Noah <noah at neo.co.tz>
> *Cc:* Ben Roberts AfriNIC <ben.roberts at afrinic.net>; Andrew Alston <
> aa at alstonnetworks.net>; RPD <rpd at afrinic.net>
> *Subject:* Re: [rpd] Questions about IP Allocation rate
>
>
>
> Or better yet, not reserving IPv4 could spur those governments to deploy
> their govnets on IPv6 from the beginning with a clean greenfield design
> leapfrogging past the legacy baggage inherent in any IPv4 based solution.
>
>
>
> Owen
>
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 13, 2025, at 12:26, Noah <noah at neo.co.tz> wrote:
>
> 
>
> Ben
>
>
>
> There is critical structural challenge in the continents digital landscape
> and you more than anyone knows this very well that we also suffer from
> uneven maturity of Digital Public Infrastructure and Government Networks
> (GovNet), which directly impacts the equitable deployment of essential
> digital services across majority of countries across our continent.
>
>
>
> Look we are talking about numbering infrastructure that would support
> services like e-government, digital IDs, and public/private data exchanges,
> while aligning with AFRINIC's exhaustion-phase policies.
>
>
>
> We can not shy away from these reality or pretend that there is lack of
> foresight from actors at Afrinic and the community at large.
>
>
>
> Its a known fact that many of our African governments lack operational
> GovNets and strategic reservations of IPv4 address space from AFRINIC could
> serve as a targeted incentive to bridge these gaps.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> *./noah*
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 13 Oct 2025, 8:34 pm Ben Roberts - AfriNIC, <
> ben.roberts at afrinic.net> wrote:
>
> I think The DPI systems are normally run by state owned digital agency
> entities which are already mostly LIRs having some space. It is not quite
> as you describe being state owned LIRs that have sovereign owned IPs that
> are independent of LIRs..
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
>
> On 13 Oct 2025, at 20:01, Noah <noah at neo.co.tz> wrote:
>
> 
>
> 54 African States are taking public services online.
>
>
>
> Digital Public infrastructure (DPI) is nolonger an idea. Its a real thing.
> DPI is critical. The private sector will tap into that infrastructure. Its
> here now.
>
>
>
> Each of the 54 African states need address space indepedent of LIR space
> in each sovereign state.
>
>
>
> These are not ideas that actors in the private sector care about or think
> about.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> *./noah*
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 13 Oct 2025, 5:52 pm Andrew Alston, <aa at alstonnetworks.net> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
>
>
> I was wondering if there were updated statistics for the amount of space
> allocated in the last 3 years.  In addition to this information regarding
> exactly how much free space is still available in the IPv4 unallocated pool
> (excluding reservations)
>
>
>
> I ask this because depending on the allocation rate - we may wish to
> consider revising the soft-landing policy that currently reserves a /12
> worth of ipv4 space for "future uses, as yet unforeseen".
>
>
>
> I point out that the soft landing policy was ratified in 2011, and if we
> still, after 14 years, have not been able to articulate a clear reason for
> such a large reservation, I think it's time we look at most, if not all, of
> that /12 back into the main unallocated pool that can be allocated for
> African resource holders that actually need it.
>
>
>
> Amongst other reasons, sitting with unallocated, unannounced, reserved
> space like this leaves the space vulnerable to hijacking and malicious use
> or even potential theft.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> RPD mailing list
> RPD at afrinic.net
> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/rpd
>
> _______________________________________________
> RPD mailing list
> RPD at afrinic.net
> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/rpd
>
> _______________________________________________
> RPD mailing list
> RPD at afrinic.net
> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/rpd
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/rpd/attachments/20251014/2122faa9/attachment.html>