Amendment of Utilisation in Soft Landing

Details

Name of Proposal	Amendment of Utilisation in Soft Landing
ID:	AFPUB-2026-IPv4-002-DRAFT01	Date Submitted:	06/05/2026
Author(s):	Jordi Palet Martinez jordi.palet[at]theipv6company.com The IPv6 Company	Version:	1.0
Obsoletes:		Amends:	Amend article 5.4.6.1 of the CPM

1. Summary of the problem being addressed by this proposal

The Soft-Landing utilisation criteria is preventing organisations that may have multiple sites, redundancy or high availability needs to achieve that, because section 5.4.6.1 states that 90% of the previous allocations or assignments must have been used.

For example, an end-user member may have received a /24 for a Data Centre and now is setting up new Data Centres. Current policy will not allow that until 90% of the first Data Centre prefix is utilised.

Another example may be an ISP, with multiple BGP PoPs, setting up 464XLAT in the network, with NAT64 devices in each PoP for high-availability purposes. Normally it will announce a /22-/24 in each PoP, even if all the addresses are not being used simultaneously all the time, so 90% utilisation is not allowing that deployment offering high-availability to the subscribers.

2. Summary of how this proposal addresses the problem

This proposal suggests that the utilisation criteria should allow cases such as those in the previous examples and similar ones.

Because the 3 million IPv4 recovered addresses, this change will not create an immediate drain of the AFRINIC pool, and instead, can help to increase the number of DC and high-availability, IPv6 deployment and better connectivity for the region.

Proposal

Amend article 5.4.6.1 of the CPM, as follows:

Current	Proposed
5.4.6.1 In order to receive IPv4 allocations or assignments during the Exhaustion Phase, the LIR or End User must have used at least 90% of all previous allocations or assignments (including those made during both the Current Phase and the Exhaustion Phase) In the case of new LIRs or End Users with no previous allocations or assignments, this requirement does not apply to their first allocation or assignment request.	5.4.6.1 In order to receive IPv4 allocations or assignments during the Exhaustion Phase, the LIR or End User must have used at least 90% of all previous allocations or assignments (including those made during both the Current Phase and the Exhaustion Phase) In the case of new LIRs or End Users with no previous allocations or assignments, this requirement does not apply to their first allocation or assignment request. The above requirement is waived for network operators requesting new IP addresses for key technical needs – such as redundancy and high-availability sites, IPv6 transition technologies, or expansion to new sites which pose a technical constraint on their current resource pool – and in these cases, the request is treated as a first allocation or request.

Current

Proposed

5.4.6.1 In order to receive IPv4 allocations or assignments during the Exhaustion Phase, the LIR or End User must have used at least 90% of all previous allocations or assignments (including those made during both the Current Phase and the Exhaustion Phase)

In the case of new LIRs or End Users with no previous allocations or assignments, this requirement does not apply to their first allocation or assignment request.

The above requirement is waived for network operators requesting new IP addresses for key technical needs – such as redundancy and high-availability sites, IPv6 transition technologies, or expansion to new sites which pose a technical constraint on their current resource pool – and in these cases, the request is treated as a first allocation or request.

4. References

In other regions, all IPv4 addresses have been exhausted and it seems that the equivalent to the soft-landing is not any more an issue, because most of the existing members only can access IPv4 addresses via transfers.

Policy Proposal

Last Modified on - 14 May 2026