Gaurav Kansal, prop-149 and the four drawbacks APNIC found

Gaurav Kansal’s IPv4 Plan Saw No Drawbacks. APNIC Found Four.

Why it matters

A proposal to give new networks twice as many IPv4 addresses came with a wonderfully short disadvantages section. The registry's assessment was less economical with its words.

Sofia Ren26 October 2026Reading Time 2 minLast update: 26 October 2026

Gaurav Kansal; likeness based on APNIC’s named nominee photograph. The ledger setting is imagined.

Summary

Gaurav Kansal and Shubham Agarwal proposed raising the maximum initial IPv4 delegation for a new APNIC account from a /23, or 512 addresses, to a /22, or 1,024.
Their prop-149 draft foresaw no disadvantages. APNIC's Secretariat identified four. At APNIC 55, the changed text was not put to consensus; the authors withdrew the proposal in July 2023.

IPv4 addresses are a shrinking cake with an unusually precise knife. A /23 contains 512 of them; a /22 contains 1,024. In prop-149's first draft, Kansal and Agarwal argued that a new APNIC account should be eligible for the larger slice. Existing account holders below a /21 total could request one more /23. The argument was practical: smaller operators need room to connect customers, and a thin starter allocation makes growth expensive before it begins.

The draft's disadvantages box was an editorial cliffhanger in reverse: “No disadvantages are foreseen.” APNIC's Secretariat assessment supplied four. Some reserved addresses could not simply be handed out. A holder that transferred out addresses might seek a fresh grant and later transfer it. The eligibility math treated different holdings unevenly: APNIC illustrated a /22 plus /23 plus /24 holder that could still qualify for another /23. And if every existing member below /21 claimed the extra space, the free pool would be exhausted and a waiting list might follow. That last item was a scenario, not a report from an empty vault.

The form also hid a timing problem. More addresses now means fewer addresses for the next applicant, while the receiving network sees its benefit immediately. APNIC noted its existing five-year transfer restriction on new delegations, but that rule did not make the questions about eligible recipients or the remaining pool disappear. Kansal and Agarwal had put a real operating pressure on the table; the Secretariat put the distribution bill beside it.

Then the document itself became the story. The APNIC 55 conference report says the version discussed at the Open Policy Meeting differed from the version sent to the mailing list. The chair did not put prop-149 to consensus on that basis. The proposal record marks its withdrawal on 31 July 2023. A community can disagree over how big a starter slice should be. It first has to be looking at the same cake.