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prop-149-v001: Change of maximum delegation for less than /21 total IPv4 holdings

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Proposer: Shubham Agarwal (shubham8agar@gmail.com)
          Gaurav Kansal gaurav.kansal@nic.in


1. Problem statement
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Over the last three years, no more than 8,00,000 IPv4 addresses have been reassigned in a single year.

Status of IPv4 Allocation by APNIC in 2022:

Available Pool: 2,593,792 IPv4 Address | about 5,066 Of /23
Reserved Pool: 1,702,144 IPv4 Address | about 3,300 Of /23

A sizable portion of the IPv4 pool is 'available+reserved' at APNIC. If APNIC continues to delegate /23 
IPv4 at its current rate of 145 x /23 delegations per month, the pool will be depleted by the end of 2027.

This implies that a significant portion of the IPv4 address space will remain available or unallocated 
for an extended period of time, and that a sizable community may continue to face resource shortages. 

This is a proposal to give APNIC account holders with fewer than /21 delegated IPv4 resources (i.e. fewer 
than 2,048 IPs) access to an additional /23 IPv4 address block.


2. Objective of policy change
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According to the current IPv4 allocation policy, APNIC account holders are only qualified to receive IPv4 
address delegations totaling a maximum of 512 (/23) from the APNIC 103/8 IPv4 address pool. The current 
minimum delegation size for IPv4 is 256 (/24) addresses. It is as per APNIC defined current minimum and 
maximum IPv4 delegation policy. 

Thus, this proposal permits account holders to use an additional /23 if their total number of delegated 
IPv4 addresses is fewer than 2,048 (less than /21).

Due to the increase in the maximum IPv4 delegation size from 512 (/23) to 1024 (/23 + /23) address pool, 
the number of IPv4 address resources will increase for new and existing APNIC account holders with a 
total number of delegated IPv4 addresses less than 2,048 (less than /21).


3. Situation in other regions
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Other RIR regions do not have a similar policy in place.


4. Proposed policy solution
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Current Policy text:

Since Thursday, 28 February 2019, each APNIC account holder is only eligible to receive IPv4 address 
delegations totaling a maximum /23 from the APNIC 103/8 IPv4 address pool.

Proposed Policy text:

New APNIC account holders are eligible to receive a maximum 1024 (/22) from the APNIC available IPv4 address pool.
Current APNIC account holders with less than /21 total IPv4 resources, are eligible to recieve an additional /23 IPv4 delegation and must be requested.
Account holders with total IPv4 resources equal to and more than /21 are not eligible for further IPv4 delegations.

This policy will be in effect till APNIC runs out of all IPv4 addresses.


5. Advantages / Disadvantages
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Advantages:
- This proposal allows for more IPv4 addresses to be received.
- This proposal increases the total number of IPv4 addresses that can be made available to networks, developing 
nations, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), etc.

Disadvantages:
- No disadvantages are foreseen.


6. Impact on resource holders
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It increases the maximum size of a delegated address block available to some APNIC account holders who currently 
have limited IPv4 resources.
NIR members will be affected in the same way as APNIC account holders.


7. References
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https://www.apnic.net/community/policy/resources#a_h_6_1