IPv4 address length technical design

Wed Oct 3 22:49:56 UTC 2012

On 10/3/12, Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> So the address space for IPv8 will be...
> </troll>

In 100 years, when we start to run out of IPv6 addresses,  possibly we
will have learned our lesson and done  two things:

  (1)   Stopped  mixing the Host identification and the Network
identification into the same bit field;   instead  every packet gets a
source network address,  destination network address, AND  an
additional  tuple of       Source host address,   destination host
address;  residing in completely separate address spaces,  with  no
"Netmasks",  "Prefix lengths", or other comingling of  network
addresses and host address spaces.

And
  (2)  The new protocol will use  variable-length address for the Host
portion, such as  used in the addresses of CLNP,  with a convention of
a specified length,  instead of a hardwired specific limit  that comes
from using a permanently  fixed-width field.

Need more bits?   No protocol definition change required.

> Cheers,
> -- jra
--
-JH