[rpd] IPv6 as a criteria in IPv4 Soft Landing AFPUB-2026-v6-001-DRAFT01.

[Jaco Kroon]

Hi All,

I'm looping back to this original email, not because I want to answer 
here directly, but rather because I think it's appropriate to consider 
the "bigger picture" of responses.

First and foremost, I've seen quite strong opinions from newly 
registered @gmail.com addresses.  I'd like to understand the affiliation 
of these participants.

In my opinion there are a number of conflicting and not quite obvious 
agendas in this, for this, and against this, policy proposal - all of 
them with various commercial impacts for various entities.  Almost none 
of them to the benefit of the "end consumer".

I personally believe the best thing is to retain the current status quo 
*as it stands*, as this leaves operational decisions to the various 
network operators rather than enforcing operational issues by way of policy.

That said, I *personally* do not believe IPv4 should have a future of 
any kind.  Here I'm in agreement with Jordi that networks should be 
deploying as IPv6-first.

The *reality* however is that the world is predominantly IPv4 - 
"everyone" is connected using IPv4, and I don't (at least not in Africa) 
see that this is going to change any time soon.  We've been debating the 
reasons for this in the office the last week or two, and I'm not going 
to bore you with the details, but our opinion is that this is not 
because networks and techies don't want to switch but because customers 
(yes, you read that right) demands that we don't.  When you deploy DNS 
for a customer - just dare try and ask for AAAA details when only 
provided with A details and see the response you get.  Usually from 
people that should *know better*.

When people run speedtest (which I understand measures only L7 
throughput) and they get a lower value on IPv6 than on IPv4 ... what's 
the next thing that happens?  User logs into router, find the "disable 
IPv6" button (or equivalent) *click*.

Okay, so follow the (apparent) European standard of users may not have 
access to their routers where they're forced to have IPv6 on and can do 
nothing about it ... had a discussion the other day with someone in 
Europe about this, "I get better throughput by putting my own router 
behind that of my ISP and running IPv4 only on my own network" - where 
there's v6 only ... well, I've yet to hear/see about that end-network.  
Some core networks sure I've heard of that.

As much as I hate to say this:  IPv4 is going to be with us for a 
while.  And we should encourage deployment of IPv6, but I don't think we 
can enforce that by way of policy as this is interfering with network 
operational decisions/designs.  I also strongly disagree with apparent 
stances I've observed hinting that we should make the soft landing more 
lax as that just drives up costs for everyone much sooner and faster, 
and in a world where everyone I communicate with are already complaining 
about the cost of stuff I don't think that's fair either.

Kind regards,
Jaco

On 2026/05/28 10:05, Darwin Da Costa wrote:
>
> Dear PDWG,
>
>
> We have received a new draft policy proposal - IPv6 as a criteria in 
> IPv4 Soft Landing ID AFPUB-2026-v6-001-DRAFT01 from author Jordi Palet 
> Martinez. The proposal contents are published at:
>
>
> https://afrinic.net/afpub-2026-v6-001-draft01
>
>
>
> We encourage you to take some time to go through the proposal contents 
> and  provide feedback as follows:
>
>
> a)Do you support or oppose the proposal?
>
>
> b) If you oppose the proposal, state your reasons?
>
>
> c) Is there anything in the proposal that is not clear?
>
>
> d) What changes could be made to this proposal to make it more effective?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Vincent Ngundi & Darwin Da Costa
>
> AFRINIC PDWG Co-Chairs
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> RPD mailing list
> RPD at afrinic.net
> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/rpd
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