Project Pangea drops IP space requirement for community networks

Cloudflare has loosened the eligibility criteria for Project Pangea, its free connectivity and security program for underserved community networks. Announced during the company's Impact Week, the change means participants no longer need to bring their own /24 block of IPv4 address space to join.

Previously, networks had to supply that block so Cloudflare could advertise routes on their behalf under a Bring Your Own IP model. That requirement proved to be a barrier: IPv4 space is scarce and expensive, and many community networks simply don't have it. With the recent extension of Magic Transit to support Cloudflare-owned IPs, the company can now offer the full set of Pangea services—Internet connectivity, DDoS protection, network firewalling, and traffic acceleration—to eligible networks without that precondition.

What Cloudflare provides to participating networks

Community networks, as defined by the Internet Society, are built and maintained by the people who use them, often emerging where commercial connectivity is absent or inadequate. Cloudflare's global footprint, spanning more than 275 cities, is the backbone of the program's value proposition.

By routing a community network's traffic through Cloudflare's Magic Transit service, operators offload several infrastructure burdens:

  • DDoS mitigation: Attack traffic is absorbed at Cloudflare's edge rather than overwhelming undersized Internet connections or on-premise security devices.
  • Firewall as a service: Magic Firewall lets operators enforce network-level rules without maintaining a physical firewall appliance, eliminating a single point of failure and an upgrade bottleneck.
  • Scalability: Because incoming traffic is distributed across hundreds of locations, operators never need to "upgrade" Cloudflare when their bandwidth needs grow. On-premise firewalls, by contrast, must be replaced once they hit specific throughput limits—often an expensive constraint on network growth.

This frees community network operators to focus on the last mile connections to their users instead of babysitting security hardware.

Case study: Ayva Networks

Ayva Networks, a not-for-profit wireless ISP serving roughly 400 households in rural Colorado mountains west of Boulder, is among the program's participants. The organization plans to expand its network to offer more gigabit access in 2023.

According to operator Nick Wilson, the results after connecting via Magic Transit have been tangible. Wilson reports noticeably better speeds for users working with cloud resources, and far less "background noise" hitting their firewalls, since Cloudflare handles the attack traffic. He also noted that the service has become essential for outage response: "using Magic Transit we're able to engineer traffic flows much more granularly than we otherwise are able to with BGP alone." This matters in an environment that includes 100+ mph winds, hail, blizzards, flooding, lightning, and fire.

Lessons from the program so far

Two operational realities have shaped the program's evolution. First, many community networks are volunteer-run passion projects; contributors have limited time, so onboarding must be as simple as possible for organizations of any size.

Second, the IP space requirement was a significant unforeseen hurdle. IP addresses are required for any device to communicate on the Internet, yet many community networks lack their own address space entirely. With Magic Transit now supporting Cloudflare IPs, Project Pangea can extend its free services to those networks.

Applying to the program

Interested community networks can review eligibility details and apply through Cloudflare's Project Pangea landing page. The program remains free for qualified participants, covering connectivity, traffic acceleration, DDoS protection, and network firewalling. Community networks that do bring their own IP space can still participate under the original model.