IPv4 address length technical design

Thu Oct 4 15:15:29 UTC 2012

On 10/4/12 1:31 AM, Marco Hogewoning wrote:
> On Oct 4, 2012, at 12:21 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>
>> IEEE 802 was expected to provide unique numbers for all computers ever built.
>>
>> Internet was expected to provide unique numbers for all computers actively on the network.
>>
>> Obviously, over time, the latter would be a declining percentage of the former since the former is increasing and never decrements while the latter could (theoretically) have a growth rate on either side of zero and certainly has some decrements even if the increments exceed the decrements.
> Which brings the question, are we expected to ever run out of the 48 bits for mac-addresses? Of course there are exceptions, but in most cases you can probably start recycling them after a certain period. And that period could even become shorter over time, I mean what are the chances you find a iPhone 1 in your network these days?

The IEEE/RAC regards the consistent enforcement of these restrictions as a
fundamental and realistic basis for ensuring longevity of the EUI-48 
identifier
capability, with a target lifetime of 100 years for existing 
applications using EUI-48
identifiers.

http://standards.ieee.org/develop/regauth/tut/eui.pdf

> Marco
>