IPv6 - real vs theoretical problems

Tue Jan 11 19:05:06 UTC 2011

> From: Michael Loftis 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 10:46 AM
> To: nanog
> Subject: Re: IPv6 - real vs theoretical problems

> Your average home user has no reason at all for anything more than a
> PtP to his/her gateway, and a single prefix routed to that gateway.
> There are most certainly a few (which includes I'm sure 99% of the
> NANOGers!) subscribers who can and will use more space than that, and
> ISPs most definitely should make /48s readily and easily available for
> those customers, but giving each and every customer a /48 (or really,
> even a pair of /64s, one for the PtP, one delegated) is almost
> certainly overkill.  The devices won't use the extra space unless
> there's some automagic way of them communicating the desire to
> eachother, and appropriately configuring themselves, and it would have
> to be very widely accepted.  But there's no technical gain.  A typical
> household would probably have less than about 50, maybe 100 devices,
> even if we start networking appliances like toasters, hair dryers and
> every single radio, tv, and light switch.
> 
> Just my 2 cents worth.

And what is to say that some devices won't have several different IPs?
Maybe a different subnet is associated with each individual in the
household when getting their voicemail or making DVR recordings or
whatever.    And I might want the stuff in my garage on a different
subnet that the stuff in my living room because it has different access
policy. To say " Your average home user has no reason at all ..." seems
like saying the average user will have no reason at all to need more
than 640K of RAM.  Many of us are looking at things from today's
perspective.  Maybe each room of my house will have its own subnet with
a low power access point and I can find which room something is in by
the IP address it has.  I have no idea, but do believe there is no
reason to be restrictive in network assignments with v6.