RIPE 85 News Update

October 28, 2022

Over 1,000 organizations are each waiting more than 300 days to  get a block of just 256 IPv4 addresses – a /24 – in the RIPE region. The RIPE NCC warned that the wait time will soon reach 24 months despite allocating 900 /24s in the last year.

In December 2021, 330 member organizations were waiting for a /24. But half of those members had multiple accounts. More than half of waiting members now have just one account.

Each request from a member with multiple accounts delays what the RIPE NCC described as “real newcomers” by 1 to 2 days. They asked whether the community wants to change the policy.

The Database Working Group discussed adding geolocation as a purpose in the RIPE Database Terms and Conditions. Another suggestion was to place geolocation in a separate, independent, database. Users rely on the “operational purposes” term now but this is hard to interpret. The Database Working Group co-chairs will now decide how to manage this discussion.

Ukraine’s government requested help from the RIPE NCC earlier in October 2022. The RIPE NCC described several ways it could protect members in distressed areas from forced transfers. They asked the RIPE community to develop a policy for this issue. But the community pushed back and asked the RIPE NCC and asked the RIPE NCC board to take action.

The subject has generated a wave of discussion on the RIPE NCC Services Working Group list.