standards for giving out blocks of IP addresses

Tue Jun 12 23:32:14 UTC 2001

* Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu <Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu> [20010612 13:03]:
> On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 16:17:01 EDT, shsu at HydroOne.com  said:
> > Hi, is there a standard or a practice on how much IP addresses an ISP should
> > provide to his/her client given that this client has bought only 2Mb of
> > bandwidth and this client is an ISP?
> 
> Umm.. don't bother.  Let's think this through.  2Mbits/sec of bandwidth
> will only sustain about 40 56KB modems doing a simultaneous download.

You've got an interesting view of the $20/mo. retail dial-up market 
economics.  Very few access providers have end-users on dial-up with such 
thriving Internet habits (though each access providers' customer base 
differs).

> Even adding in think time and the like, a /24 should be plenty wide enough.

I can't contest this since the original poster provided insufficient 
information.  A single /24 happens to be a default for some providers of T1
IP transit in the U.S unless the end-user requests otherwise...but not all
providers are quite so lacks.  More importantly, the IP address utilization 
(and associated utilization time line) is more useful in determining what 
size block should be assigned to the client.  The available (or in use) 
bandwidth is more of a side note than a deciding factor in block size
assignment.  It happens to be rare that a dial-up customer can justify
a /24 but it is hardly rare for a T1 customer to have multiple /24s fully
populated.  IP address requirements are hardly a direct result of the size
of the pipe.

> The *BIG* question is how the ISP intends to make any money at that scale.
> Figuring even a 10X over-commitment, that's 400 customers at $20/mo or so,
> for an inbound cash flow of only $8K/month, with which they get to pay their
> bandwidth charge, their tech support, and everything else.
> 
> I wish them luck.

You've apparently not paid much attention to how this industry got started
have you?  Though, they will need the luck...I'll grant you that... :-) 
Times have changed more than a little in the U.S....but it still happens
here.  On an international level there are even more pockets where this
sort of evolution in the Internet industry has yet to be played out (and
can still be exploited for fun and profit).

-jr

----
Josh Richards <jrichard@{ geekresearch.com, cubicle.net }> [JTR38/JR539-ARIN]
Geek Research, LLC - San Luis Obispo, CA - <URL:http://www.geekresearch.com/>
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