Sprint's filtering

David R. Conrad David_Conrad at isc.org
Wed Oct 7 23:07:17 UTC 1998


Hi,

>if you have some *facts* to present, please
>feel free to send them my way.

Fact:  the existence of documented filters imposed by Sprint was and is
used by the Internet registries (well, at least one I'm positive about) to
discourage the allocation of provider independent prefixes.

Did this "save the Internet"?  First, you have to figure out what it means
for the Internet not to be "saved".  In this context, I'd argue it would
mean portions of the Internet would become unreachable because routers
couldn't handle the routing load.  The Internet would not have collapsed --
service providers would take whatever steps they felt necessary to provide
the highest level of service they were able to please the largest portion
of their customers.  In practice, I suspect this would mean they would (you
guessed it) filter out long prefixes.  

So the question really is, did Sprint's filters reduce the rate of growth
of the Internet routing system.  Clearly, given the registries did not
allocate some prefixes they would have had otherwise, the answer is yes.
Would the Internet have partitioned if Sprint didn't impose the filters?
Dunno.  I do know that the number of provider independent prefixes at least
one registry allocated dropped significantly after the filters were turned on.

Regards,
-drc




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