How can we provide enough IP address to MAN network

Mon Jan 1 14:24:33 UTC 2001

At 06:54 01/01/01, Yu Ning wrote:
>Recall the scarcity of IPv4 address, I wonder how this huge ip address demand was met in US ?

        More than 50% of the IPv4 address space is not yet
allocated, so they aren't so scarce.  APNIC should be able
to provide sufficient address space -- but you will need to
give them a plan for your network to explain why you need
so much address space.

>In my mind, we have the following choices:
>1.  Build the MAN into a private address network, a class A network 10.x.x.x will be sufficient for
>     most metropolitan. But the cons is: need PAT/NAT to access public Internet, and that leads to
>     the potential performance bottleneck.

        One could build the MAN using private addresses, but put
customers in public global addresses, which would mean no need
for NAT/PAT.

        As I said above, you should be able to get enough address
space from APNIC by providing documentation for your planned
network.

>3. Build the MAN into a IPv6 network, and use address conversion at the interconnection point between
>    v4 and v6. Just an idea, feeling that conversion efficiency between v4-v6 should be better than
>    NAT/PAT, any support comments?

        Conversion efficiency will not be any different and you
would still need to get enough IPv6 address space.

        You should probably start by talking with APNIC about
getting enough IPv4 address space to meet your planned network.
That is the simplest and lowest cost approach.

Best wishes,

Ran Atkinson
rja at extremenetworks.com
Senior Scientist
Extreme Networks
Herndon, VA, USA