[rpd] Pushing IPv6 ? Re: Questions about IP Allocation rate

Tue Oct 14 20:38:48 UTC 2025

Speaking from a nation currently enduring military conflict and the near-total destruction of its infrastructure. At this moment—and for the foreseeable future—progress is impossible. We respectfully ask that our share of the resources be reserved until we are able to address and overcome our most urgent crisis.

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________________________________
From: Noah <noah at neo.co.tz>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2025 8:33:55 PM
To: Sami Salih <sami.salih at outlook.com>
Cc: Jordi Palet Martinez <jordi.palet at consulintel.es>; RPD <rpd at afrinic.net>
Subject: Re: [rpd] Pushing IPv6 ? Re: Questions about IP Allocation rate

On Tue, 14 Oct 2025, 8:10 pm Sami Salih, <sami.salih at outlook.com<mailto:sami.salih at outlook.com>> wrote:
That said, relying on African governments may be reasonable for countries with stable economic and political conditions. However, given the conflicts and instability present in several regions across the continent, it's wise to preserve sufficient resources for future generations, who may otherwise face significant scarcity.

A classic example in contemporary african history is states that suffered prolonged civil wars such as Somalia, South Sudan, Burundi, Sierra Leon to name but a few whose pacification is as recent as a decade ago with some sense of peace & political stability starting to emerge.

On a related note, the reserved IP blocks come at no cost. They don’t require active maintenance or storage infrastructure, just basic protection against misuse or hijacking. These reserves can be kept indefinitely. And once IPv6 becomes the dominant protocol, we can simply "let them go!". But for now, we need to keep our resources.

100% and this is the sorf of foresight that most actors both within Afrinic and the internet community does not seem to grasp.

If we can reserve space for critical Infra such as IXP's then policy development should always be guided by a considerable number of socio-economic factors.

Mwalimu Nyerere once stated to the nation that, look, those minerals that we cant exploit today, can always be exploited later in futute when posterity is ready and knowledgable enough to make good sense of them after all, they dont expire. Its now 5 decades later and with education, information and exposure, the people are now able to use the raw-material and build industry locally.

Foresight my people, foresight. We are internet engineers yes but we must think beyond just engineering.

Noah

Sami Salih,

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________________________________
From: jordi.palet--- via RPD <rpd at afrinic.net<mailto:rpd at afrinic.net>>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2025 7:06:14 PM
To: RPD <rpd at afrinic.net<mailto:rpd at afrinic.net>>
Subject: Re: [rpd] Pushing IPv6 ? Re: Questions about IP Allocation rate

I would agree with you if all the economies have the same resources (not just economical ones, but also human resources, expertise, etc.), but we know is not the case.

Now a different  history is if any ISP in 1-2 years from now, has not *at least* started their deployment plans. In such a situation, I think it is a clear matter of governments, in their duty to protect citizens, taking strong actions against any service provider or industry not doing so. Of course that means the government networks itself need to use IPv6: they need to set the example, otherwise you can’t enforce it.

Today deploying a *new* network using 464XLAT is even cheaper and easier than doing so with IPv4 or dual-stack. So this must be clearly enforced to obtain new licenses, as there is no excuse. This is valid for either cellular networks, broadband networks or even for enterprise networks using IPv6-mostly.

I fully understand that is not the same for an existing network, that’s why they should have some more time, but at least have *clearly structured* plans, not just “yes we are thinking on that” ...

Saludos,
Jordi

@jordipalet

El 14 oct 2025, a las 17:14, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com<mailto:owen at delong.com>> escribió:

If it isn’t already deployed, I question this at this point. How long should the rest of the internet subsidize failure to deploy? Personally, I think we are past that point.

Owen

On Oct 14, 2025, at 02:05, jordi.palet--- via RPD <rpd at afrinic.net<mailto:rpd at afrinic.net>> wrote:

Agree, however, we know very well that a small IPv4 pool (may be a /24 for each BGP PoP), is needed for interconnection with IPv4 Internet, as there may be still some old apps that require it.

Regards,
Jordi

@jordipalet

El 14 oct 2025, a las 10:46, Owen DeLong via RPD <rpd at afrinic.net<mailto:rpd at afrinic.net>> escribió:

Yes, exactly. The continuing presence of an IPv4 free pool at AFRINIC and the efforts to keep it from running out are actually counterproductive to progress in the African digital economy.

Owen

On Oct 14, 2025, at 01:22, Hendrik Visage <hvisage at hevis.co.za<mailto:hvisage at hevis.co.za>> wrote:

 Question:

 Shouldn’t we rather consider pushing IPv6 deployment assistance across Africa? ie. let the rest of the IPv4 go ASAP without much resistance instead of making this a begging/pleading/fighting game?

ARIN (North America) & RIPE (Europe) serviced areas are way ahead of IPv6 roll outs, ‘cause they don’t have any left, and looking at AfriNIC services countries, we are still have an abundance of IPv4, so IPv6 percentage roll outs are very low, and rathe we should be pushing to mirror the IPv6 percentage rollout and usage rather than fighting over the few remaining IPv4s if we want to grow digital rollouts.

Perhaps even moving to a state of: “You can have IPv6, once you’ve proven a complete IPv6 rollout can you get anymore IPv4"

---
Hendrik Visage
Instant messaging: https://t.me/hvisage

On 13 Oct 2025, at 16:43, Andrew Alston <aa at alstonnetworks.net<mailto: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

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---

Hendrik Visage

hvisage at hevis.co.za<mailto:hvisage at hevis.co.za>

HeViS.Co Systems Pty Ltd

https://www.envisage.co.za

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