BBC does IPv6 ;) (Was: large multi-site enterprises and PI prefix [Re: who gets a /32)

Thu Nov 25 12:50:50 UTC 2004

On 25-nov-04, at 10:27, Jeroen Massar wrote:

>> 200 locations doesn't seem that off to me..

> That is exactly the right way to count ;)

> Which kind of makes the point, that they deserve the /32

Well, apparently RIPE thinks they do, so there must be some piece of 
information that I'm not privvy to.

However, in the absense of that particular piece of information, I have 
a hard time seeing how the BBC qualifies for a /32. Last time I 
checked, they weren't an ISP. 200 sites doesn't qualify you for a /32: 
it qualifies you for a /48 (jusst like one site does). That's 65536 
subnets = ~300 subnets per site. If that's not enough, perhaps a /47 or 
/46 is in order, or maybe, just maybe a /40 = a /48 per site. But a /32 
is ridiculous: this allows for 4 billion subnets (20 million per site).

Here is a quote from the "IPv6 Address Allocation and Assignment 
Policy" (http://www.iana.org/ipaddress/ipv6-allocation-policy-26jun02 
):

5.1.1.  Initial allocation criteria

    To qualify for an initial allocation of IPv6 address space, an
    organization must:

    a) be an LIR;
    b) not be an end site;
    c) plan to provide IPv6 connectivity to organizations to which it
       will assign /48s, by advertising that connectivity through its
       single aggregated address allocation; and
    d) have a plan for making at least 200 /48 assignments to other
       organizations within two years.