According to TheRegister.com, Cloudflare researchers Vasilis Giotsas and Marwan Fayed published findings last week revealing that Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) traffic faces three times more rate limiting than non-CGNAT traffic, despite being more likely to originate from human users. Their research analyzed over 200,000 CGNAT IPs, 180,000 VPN and proxy IPs, and nearly 900,000 other IPs, finding that ISPs disproportionately throttle CGNAT connections because multiple users share single IP addresses, causing innocent users to be penalized alongside bad actors. The problem is particularly acute in Africa and Asia, where limited IPv4 address allocations force carriers to rely heavily on CGNAT technology that can handle over 100 devices per IPv4 address. This creates what the researchers call “an unseen source of bias on the Internet” with profound implications for digital equity.
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The Structural Roots of Digital Discrimination
The CGNAT bias problem reveals deeper structural issues in global internet governance that date back decades. The original IPv4 address allocation system created permanent advantages for early-adopting nations, primarily the United States and Europe, while leaving developing regions with address scarcity that now manifests as performance discrimination. This isn’t just a technical limitation—it’s a form of digital redlining where users in Africa, Asia, and other developing regions systematically receive inferior service due to infrastructure decisions made before many of these nations had meaningful internet access. The Cloudflare research essentially documents how historical resource allocation continues to shape user experience decades later, creating a tiered internet where geography determines quality of service.
Competitive Implications for Global Tech
This systemic bias has significant market consequences that extend far beyond individual user frustration. Companies operating in CGNAT-heavy regions face inherent disadvantages in global competition—their applications experience higher latency, more frequent blocking, and unreliable connections compared to services originating from IPv4-rich regions. This creates an uneven playing field where startups in Nairobi or Jakarta must overcome infrastructure hurdles that Silicon Valley companies never face. The throttling issue particularly impacts real-time applications like video conferencing, gaming, and financial transactions, effectively limiting the types of services that can successfully emerge from affected regions. As global remote work becomes standard, this bias could increasingly determine which regions produce the next generation of successful tech companies.
The False Economy of IP-Based Security
ISPs’ reliance on IP-based security measures represents a fundamental failure to adapt to modern network realities. Traditional blocklisting and rate-limiting assume a one-to-one relationship between IP addresses and users, a model that became obsolete with the widespread adoption of CGNAT, VPNs, and mobile networks. The research findings suggest that many security teams are using outdated heuristics that penalize efficiency—CGNAT exists specifically to maximize scarce IPv4 resources, yet security systems punish this efficiency by treating shared IPs as suspicious. This creates perverse incentives where network operators must choose between efficient resource utilization and avoiding security filters, a tradeoff that shouldn’t exist in properly designed systems.
The IPv6 Transition Stall-Out
Perhaps the most damning implication is what this reveals about the stalled IPv6 transition. CGNAT was always intended as a temporary bridge to IPv6, yet as the researchers note with the old proverb, “Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution.” The persistence of CGNAT bias indicates systemic failure in global IPv6 adoption, particularly among the very carriers who most need the technology. While major content providers and cloud platforms have embraced IPv6, last-mile providers in affected regions continue to rely on increasingly problematic CGNAT implementations. This creates a coordination problem where even if content is available over IPv6, users stuck behind CGNAT gateways cannot reliably access it without encountering throttling and blocking.
Emerging Regulatory and Compliance Risks
The documented bias creates significant regulatory exposure for global technology companies and carriers. As digital equity becomes an increasing focus for regulators worldwide—from the EU’s digital sovereignty initiatives to emerging markets’ internet governance frameworks—systemic discrimination based on network architecture could trigger compliance challenges. Companies that rely on IP-based geolocation for content licensing, fraud prevention, or service tiering may face legal challenges if their systems disproportionately affect users in developing regions. The technical evidence now provides concrete data that could support regulatory action or class-action litigation against companies whose security measures systematically disadvantage entire regions.
The Path Forward Requires Architectural Change
Solving this problem requires more than just technical adjustments—it demands fundamental changes in how we architect global internet infrastructure. The solution space includes developing CGNAT-aware security systems that can distinguish between individual users behind shared IPs, accelerating IPv6 deployment in underserved regions, and creating new standards for fair traffic management. Carriers operating CGNAT infrastructure must work with security providers to develop more sophisticated detection methods, while content providers need to ensure their services remain accessible through NAT gateways. The alternative is perpetuating a divided internet where users’ geographic location continues to determine their digital rights and opportunities, undermining the very principle of a globally connected world.
