Even though we have run out of IPv4, we will continue to recover small amounts of addresses for the foreseeable future. These are addresses that have been de-registered when members go out of business or are closed down, or that members have chosen to return. The RIPE community has agreed that we should allocate any recovered addresses to members via a waiting list, using a /24 allocation size (256 addresses). You can find more information in the IPv4 Policy.
In order to submit an IPv4 request, the following criteria apply:
It is important that members understand they will only receive an IPv4 allocation “if and when” we have enough addresses. How long this takes will depend on the number of addresses we recover and how many request are on the waiting list.
When we recover IPv4 addresses, we hold on to them for a quarantine period. During this time, we take a number of actions that help to make it clear the addresses are no longer associated with their previous holder and should be considered as “new” address space. Once a block of IPv4 addresses has finished this process, we will allocate it to members according to their order on the waiting list. It is impossible to predict how many addresses we will recover over the coming years – we do not expect that it will be many.