The IESG Approved the Expansion of the AS Number Registry

Fri Dec 1 17:00:24 UTC 2006

On Fri, 1 Dec 2006, Donald Stahl wrote:

> > So, all of the current devices need to get upgraded before 'day one' of
> > 32-bit ASN use... that'll be fun :) Why is RIPE passing out the 32-bit
> > ASN's now?
> ARIN will begin passing out 32 bit ASN's to anyone who asks as of January
> 1, 2007. This is the same policy as RIPE so I don't see what the big deal
> is.

Uhm, I think I mis-read the date on the original :( I thought they HAD
been passing them out, not WILL BE :( need more coffee :(

>
> > aren't there still plenty (+20k or so) 16-bit ASN's out there
> > for assignment? (perhaps I'm missing something on the need to allocate the
> > new asn's?)
> By all means let's wait until the last possible second to upgrade ASN
> support. The waiting approach has worked so well for IPV6 :) Seriously
> though- why not let people start registering now. The only way we'll know
> if 32 bit ASN's will work is if we start using them.
>

agreed, let's NOT do the v6 thing... do the 32-bit asn's give us more than
just 'more bits' ? :) (Sorry, I couldn't resist). So, yes, let's get
someone to start testing, I'd just caution on assigning the 32-bit asn's
for real-users, since much of the net might not be able to use them,
partial reachability will/could-be a problem.