Windows/NT to break the Internet?

Wed Oct 16 14:47:44 UTC 1996

How long can the Internet last if every customer needs to get a /24?
That is what appears to be with Windows/NT 4.0.  This server has
lately become very popular with small customers that install an NT
server and a few PCs and want a connection.  ISPs up to know would assign
a /26 or perhaps a /27 or even a /30 to SOHOs like this.  Windows NT 4.0
when defining the address range as well as the DNS and inverse - only has
space in the form for 3 octets.  They assume you are a /24 or larger.  I 
have had customers come back to me and say that they can't even enter
the 255.255.255.224 mask I gave them on their system since the NT doesn't
support it.  Let alone the problems with inverse subnetting that there
is a draft RFC out there that almost everyone follows.  Seems to have
slipped by the people in Oregon, though.

I have been very careful up till now to make optimal use of IP address
space but I fear with the plenthora of WinNT 4.0s out there we will see
2% utilization of IP address space in the future.

Am I missing something here on WinNT installs?  Or is Microsoft gonna
cause the IP address space to expire sooner than we had planned?

Hank Nussbacher
IBM Israel