Geo location to IP mapping

Mon May 15 23:04:53 UTC 2006

> From owner-nanog at merit.edu  Mon May 15 17:42:13 2006
> From: Kevin Day <toasty at dragondata.com>
> Subject: Re: Geo location to IP mapping
> Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 17:40:23 -0500
>
> We use a Geo/IP location database. It's surprisingly accurate, with a  
> few exceptions.
>
[[  sneck  ]]
>
> Comparing the database to the IP that our customers used to make  
> purchases we exceed 95% accuracy in identifying the country, and  
> 75-85% in city/state. The big exception is AOL, since their IP  
> assignments are pretty well randomized with respect to geography.

*dynamically* randomized, no less, or so I've been told.  As in: _all_ the 
customer session addresses are assigned out of *one* DHCP pool.

I thought that 'unlikely', considering the mayhem on internal routing tables,
but the AOL rep was rather insistant that that _was_ the case.

They also have 'virtual' POPs, where they just backhaul ('tens if not hundreds'
of miles, in same cases) voice, rather than having any physical equipment 
present.