Governance
BGP routing trends 2024 key insights and outlook
Analysis of BGP routing trends in 2024 reveals slowing IPv4 growth, rising IPv6 adoption, and a shift towards CDN-driven traffic patterns
Headline
Analysis of BGP routing trends in 2024 reveals slowing IPv4 growth, rising IPv6 adoption, and a shift towards CDN-driven traffic patterns
Context
In the past year, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) reflected key shifts in the internet’s growth patterns. The report highlights how the demand for IPv4 addresses slowed significantly, with 2024 showing a 6% increase in IPv4 routing table entries. Amazon played a substantial role by announcing 81 million new IPv4 addresses in December 2024. Conversely, the number of routed Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) increased modestly by 3.2%.
Evidence
Pending intelligence enrichment.
Analysis
This data suggests a plateauing of IPv4 growth due to market saturation and a wider reliance on private content distribution networks (CDNs), which reduce dependency on public transit routing. On the IPv6 front, BGP metrics indicated an annual growth rate of 10%, driven largely by more specific route advertisements . However, IPv6 adoption remains inconsistent, with only seven major economies accounting for over 71% of global IPv6 address spans. This fragmentation highlights how traffic engineering, route hijacking mitigation, and access network consolidation contribute to the diverse landscape of internet routing. Also read: RIPE NCC activity plan and budget 2025 highlight new goals Also read: RIPE NCC publishes minutes of 179th Executive Board Meeting
Key Points
- BGP routing table growth shows signs of market saturation and CDN-driven shifts.
- IPv4 growth plateaus while IPv6 adoption shows a steady rise but remains uneven globally.
Actions
Pending intelligence enrichment.
