IPv6 news

Thu Oct 13 09:02:23 UTC 2005

>     Percentage of available address space announced:               38.6

You misunderstand what IP addresse are. They have nothing
whatsoever to do with the Internet. The address space
announced on the Internet is an entirely separate issue.

IP addresses were established as part of the development
of a networking protocol called the Internet Protocol,
or IP for short. This protocol was designed to allow
many independent networks to interconnect or internetwork
and exchange traffic. In order for such internetworks
to work they need to be allocated unique IP addresses.

The prerequisite for receiving globally unique IP
addresses is that you have to be using IP technology
and have a need to internetwork with other networks.
There are several such IP internetworks that are
entirely separate from the public (big I) Internet.
That's where the other addresses are used and their
usage is growing at about the same rate as Internet
usage is growing.

Think of it like Ethernet MAC addresses.

> From where I sit, the perceived shortage is due to non-existant 
> reclamation of unused resources,

It would be nice to see more reclamation and recycling
of IP addresses. As near as I can tell, there is a fair
bit of reclamation but it is all voluntary and ad-hoc.
It isn't part of any publicly agreed process that would
lead to reuse of those addresses.

> All I see is that in 3-4 years we will actually have to engage our 
> collective brains again and start getting new IP allocations from a 
> different source.

If you agree with the Cisco IP Journal article then we have
to engage our collective brains *NOW* to plan and test
and be ready for the day when we need to do things differently.

--Michael Dillon