According to TheRegister.com, Cloudflare published research last week revealing that internet service providers are three times more likely to throttle traffic from Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) IP addresses despite this traffic being less likely to originate from bots. The research, conducted by Cloudflare researchers Vasilis Giotsas and Marwan Fayed, analyzed over 200,000 CGNAT IPs, 180,000 VPNs and proxies, and nearly 900,000 other IPs, finding that CGNAT implementation creates significant operational challenges because hundreds or thousands of users can appear to originate from a single IP address. This geographic disparity particularly affects Africa and Asia, where smaller IPv4 address allocations force more extensive CGNAT use, meaning security measures designed for one-to-one IP-to-user relationships inadvertently penalize entire groups of users when one engages in malicious activity. The researchers concluded that accurate detection of CGNAT IPs is crucial for minimizing collateral damage in network operations and ensuring fair security measure application.
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The Infrastructure Bias Problem
What Cloudflare’s research reveals is a fundamental design flaw in how we’ve approached internet scaling. CGNAT was always intended as a temporary bridge to IPv6, but like many temporary solutions in technology, it has become permanent infrastructure. The problem isn’t just technical—it’s systemic. When security systems treat CGNAT traffic with suspicion simply because multiple users share an IP, we’re building geographic discrimination directly into the network layer. This creates what I call “infrastructure bias,” where the very architecture of the internet treats users differently based on where they’re located and which technologies their local ISPs could afford to deploy.
Market and Competitive Consequences
The economic implications of this bias are substantial. Companies operating in regions with heavy CGNAT usage face higher operational costs and reliability challenges. E-commerce platforms, streaming services, and SaaS providers serving African and Asian markets may experience higher bounce rates and customer dissatisfaction due to unexplained throttling. This creates an invisible barrier to digital commerce in developing regions, potentially slowing the growth of local tech ecosystems. Meanwhile, ISPs in these regions face a difficult choice: invest in expensive IPv6 transitions or continue with CGNAT and accept the performance penalties. The Cloudflare research suggests this isn’t just a technical problem—it’s a business competitiveness issue affecting entire regional economies.
Security Industry Reckoning
The security industry faces a significant challenge in adapting to this reality. Traditional security models built around IP reputation and rate limiting are fundamentally broken in a CGNAT-heavy world. Security vendors that fail to adapt risk making their products less effective in precisely the markets experiencing the fastest growth. We’re likely to see a shift toward more sophisticated behavioral analysis and device fingerprinting technologies that don’t rely solely on IP addresses. Companies that develop effective CGNAT-aware security solutions could gain significant market advantage in emerging markets, while those sticking to traditional methods may find their products increasingly irrelevant in these regions.
The IPv6 Acceleration Imperative
The ultimate solution, as Cloudflare notes, is broader IPv6 adoption, but the economic incentives remain misaligned. For ISPs in developing regions, CGNAT represents a cheaper short-term solution than comprehensive IPv6 deployment. However, as this research demonstrates, the hidden costs of CGNAT—in customer experience, security effectiveness, and now documented bias—may change that calculation. We could see regulatory pressure increasing for IPv6 adoption as digital equity concerns grow. The findings about CGNAT bias might finally provide the business case needed to accelerate IPv6 transitions in regions that have been slow to adopt.
Looking Forward: Digital Equity Challenges
This research highlights a broader trend in internet governance: technical decisions made decades ago continue to shape digital access today. The unequal distribution of IPv4 addresses created structural advantages for early-adopting nations, and CGNAT has become another layer in this digital divide. As more essential services move online—from education and healthcare to government services—the performance penalties associated with CGNAT could exacerbate existing inequalities. This isn’t just about web browsing speed; it’s about whether entire populations can reliably access the digital tools necessary for modern life and economic participation.
