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

Wed Jul 8 09:28:34 UTC 2026

Hi Mark,

<outright sarcasm>
Yes.  The raw Mbits/second value ends up being marginally lower in 
almost all cases.  And that's all that matters.
</outright sarcasm>

I agree latency is the more important measure.  Most (non-tech) people 
don't reason like that.

Kind regards,
Jaco

On 2026/07/08 10:29, Mark Elkins via RPD wrote:

> So IPv6 is slower???
>
> From my home in Pretoria, where I have a 100Mbps FTTH connection via 
> Telkom/Axxess - I can easily test ping times to a server I have at 
> Teraco in Johannesburg. Running ping side-by-side, I see:-
>
>            Min     Avg   Max   Mdev
> IPv6:  4.565/5.028/6.021/0.318 ms
> IPv4:  5.013/5.902/6.452/0.395 ms
>
> Speedtest systems give me 105Mbps down and 95Mbps upload speeds.... 
> (to Durban???) - but do I really care? I'm more interested in "how 
> quick does that Website load" or "how fast are responses to typing" - 
> not "do I save a second in downloading a 1.2GB movie"
>
> Anyway - my Interactive interaction to my servers at Teraco is faster 
> on IPv6 than on IPv4 - not that I really notice a 1ms difference!
>
> Oh - I strongly suggest if you are in the Internet industry then you 
> should generally use your ccTLD based email address - not Gmail/Yahoo 
> - etc.
>
>
> On 2026/07/08 09:01, Jaco Kroon via RPD wrote:
>
>> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> RPD mailing list
>> RPD at afrinic.net
>> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/rpd
> -- 
>
> Mark James ELKINS  -  Posix Systems - (South) Africa
> mje at posix.co.za Tel: +27.826010496 <tel:+27826010496>
> For fast, reliable, low cost Internet in ZA: https://ftth.posix.co.za
>
> Posix SystemsVCARD for MJ Elkins
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> RPD mailing list
> RPD at afrinic.net
> https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo/rpd
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