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

Wed Jul 8 11:08:15 UTC 2026

Hi Jaco,

Some responses below, in-line.

Regards,
Jordi

@jordipalet

> El 8 jul 2026, a las 9:01, Jaco Kroon via RPD <rpd at afrinic.net> escribió:
> 
> 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*.
> 
I disagree, not true anymore. Measurements from Google, Meta, APNIC, Akamai, etc., show 50% and none of them is able to measure the traffic in China (where they have strict mandates for IPv6-only), so worldwide, we are closer to 65-70%.

In addition to that, there is something that we never count on measurements, in terms of actual terabits. All the traffic from CDNs is measured only “once” (when it is cached), but if users have IPv6, they will get as many copies with IPv6 as users accessing that content. This is the reason why IX can’t measure CDN traffic and often they are showing much lower real data.
> 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*.
> 
> 
If you get lower measurements with IPv6 there is some deployment issue, either in the access, distribution, BNGs, or even upstreams. This is not only creating this “slower effect”, but also Happy Eyeballs entering into action and falling back to IPv4. One of the reasons that I mention in a previous email a few days ago which means that instead of having 70-90% IPv6 traffic you may be getting only 30%.

Geoff Huston do lots of measurements that show that IPv6 typically is faster (not because the protocol itself, but just because the lack of NAT and CGN, as well as because often it is deployed much better than keeping the older IPv4 configs).

Here is the thing. When you deploy IPv4, you really check everything, ensure a good monitoring, etc., right? Well, we like it or not, I see many IPv6 deployments really broken. Again lack of expertise in real deployment and good knowledge of standards.
> 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.
> 
This is probably from someone misinformed. In fact, since many years ago EU regulations enforce the provider to give complete access to the CPE, and even be able to replace it with your own, etc.
> 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.
> 
So we prefer instead of our own policies at our own pace, government regulations?
> 
> 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
>> 
>> 
>> 
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