On 27 Aug 2026, at 12:58, James Kennedy via address-policy-wg <address-policy-wg@ripe.net> wrote:

[…]

1. The renumbering mechanism punishes IPv6 growth

This is the concern I raised in Edinburgh, and the IA confirms: considering current reservations, a request for additional PI space “will require renumbering in almost all cases” and “might be highly impactful and time-consuming for network operators”. Basic maths make this inevitable - the RIPE NCC usually reserves 2 bits of headroom around a PI assignment (e.g. /46 for a /48), while nibble boundaries require 4. A holder whose IPv6 operations are growing is a success story that we want more of. Policy should make genuine IPv6 growth requests frictionless, not disruptive.

Please keep in mind in all this that PI is the affordable route to provider independence for smaller organisations and operators in lower-income economies across our service region. These holders are least equipped to absorb a forced renumbering exercise.

The main reason there is a problem for this proposal to fix is that we have a rule requiring the assignment to be the end user. If the network operator had an allocation they could make sub-allocations until, eventually, they make an assignment to any user. And they’d have at least a /32, which would allow them to develop an addressing plan that would support growth for a long time.

So while it’s not within the remit of this WG to solve, perhaps a solution to the problem could be found in a new Charging Scheme. At the moment moving from paying for a /48 and an ASN to a /32 and an ASN would mean paying 14 times as much.

I support the goal of this proposal, which I see as removing barriers to getting the resources needed by legitimate network operators. But the policy text is fairly complex and I wonder if that’s because the core issue isn’t policy but how much things cost.