RIPE /21 assignment vanished after ten days

RIPE Assigned 2,048 Addresses for Ten Days. Then the Row Vanished.

Why it matters

A British-coded /21 appeared inside RIPE NCC’s reserved address span on 23 October. The 2 November file folded it back into the reservation, and today’s RDAP has no more specific holder to name.

Theo March3 November 2026Reading Time 2 minLast update: 3 November 2026

RIPE NCC’s daily file held 151.216.16.0/21 as assigned for ten days, then joined its 2,048 addresses back into a reserved range.

Summary

RIPE NCC’s 23 October file listed 151.216.16.0/21 as a GB-coded assignment of 2,048 IPv4 addresses. The row remained through 1 November.
On 2 November the assignment disappeared and the surrounding reserved rows became one 523,008-address span again. Current RIPE RDAP returns only the parent /8 for an address inside the former /21.

For ten days, 151.216.16.0/21 had a line of its own. The 22 October RIPE file placed the address range inside a 523,008-address reservation. On 23 October, RIPE cut out 2,048 addresses and labelled them assigned, with GB in the country field and that day’s date. Two smaller reserved rows flanked the new /21.

The assignment was still there in the 1 November snapshot. The 2 November snapshot has no such line. Its reserved row once again starts at 151.216.5.0 and counts 523,008 addresses. The arithmetic is exact: 2,816 before the /21, 2,048 within it and 518,144 after it. RIPE did not lose a block in the file; it changed the block’s published status.

Ask RIPE’s current RDAP who holds an address in that vanished /21 and it returns the administrative 151.0.0.0/8 parent, with no more specific registrant. The RIR statistics specification calls these files daily snapshots, not case histories. A dated RIPE case record would explain why the assignment was entered and then removed. The public ledger shows the reversal; it does not supply the decision behind it.

Sources: RIPE 23 October; RIPE 1 November; RIPE 2 November; RIPE RDAP.