WG Action: Conclusion of IP Version 6 (ipv6)

Wed Oct 3 06:30:19 UTC 2007

John,

On Oct 2, 2007, at 8:25 PM, John Curran wrote:
> At 7:01 PM -0700 10/2/07, David Conrad wrote:
> Most organizations connecting to the Internet want at least a few  
> static unique addresses for web and mail servers.

Do they?  I suppose it depends on your definition of 'organization'.   
Presumably, your definition excludes nearly all home users and most  
SOHOs who outsource their web pages and mail services.  It would be  
interesting to see actual data from ISPs describing where their  
address space is going today, but I imagine they consider this  
confidential.

However, you seem to be assuming there will be no change in end user  
or ISP behavior as the IPv4 free pool runs out and after. This seems  
stunningly counter-intuitive to me, but presumably you have a reason  
for making this assumption. Care to share?

>> My imaginary boundary?  Interesting.  You are asserting that ISPs  
>> are going to start accepting prefixes longer than /24,  
>> particularly in the face of the FUD spread about how everybody's  
>> routers are going to turn to slag?  Why would they do this?
> A lot of ISP's will have no choice but to announce such or lose the  
> asking customer to someone who will...

"announce" != "accept".

> The largest ISP's are very likely to accept longer routes from each  
> other in order to facilitate their own continued growth,
> and pay the cost of the router upgrades (presuming they can  
> actually upgrade fast enough to keep up with the tragedy of the  
> commons run on "free" address table entries...)

You are asserting that the largest ISPs will simply accept everything  
thrown at them up to and after their routers start falling over.   
Again, this seems stunningly counter-intuitive to me.  This hasn't  
been ISP behavior in the past nor present.  Not sure why you think it  
will be their behavior in the future.

>> Again, we've been here before.  You and I both have the t-shirts.   
>> What happened when routers started falling over circa 1996?  Why  
>> do you believe things will be different this time? Presumably you  
>> have a reason.
> How does AT&T refuse numerous additional prefixes from BT, if they  
> in turn need to announce numerous additions in order to grow?

The fact that a peer refuses to accept your customer's very long  
prefixes would be unfortunate, but presumably no ISP guarantees  
network behavior in networks they have no control over.

> Sales and marketing never take kindly to being told "stop selling,  
> we're full", and doubly so when competitors are busy connecting new  
> customers without adhering to all this route filtering stuff in the  
> way the quarterly numbers.

Sales and marketing can continue to sell IPv4 /32s if they so desire  
and they might even be useful on the network they represent.   
However, one would hope sales and marketing folk are not making  
assertions about how other networks operate, what those networks will  
accept and route, etc.  Even if the sales and marketing folk are  
making such silly assertions, presumably standard ISP T&Cs limit the  
responsibility of the ISP to the network they have direct control over.

>> Nope.  Fragmentation will occur.  The question is to what level.   
>> Why should an ISP go in and modify its existing prefix length  
>> filters in order to gain routability to somebody else's new customer?
> See above.  They'll change it the day they're asked and find  
> themselves needing to announce longer prefixes as well.  Really,  
> the ability of filtering to survive in the face of competitive  
> pressure was already well-tested, and the result are: they don't.

They didn't because technology had advanced to the point where they  
were no longer necessary.  Routers on the network imposing the  
filters weren't falling over, thus the network engineering arguments  
that they couldn't remove the filters because routers would fall over  
would no longer fly.

>> If you were actually worried about an explosion of routing  
>> information, I'd think you'd be campaigning for greater  
>> implementation of prefix length filters on the legacy /8s that are  
>> likely to be the first entrants into a free for all.
> Sounds like wonderful idea...  run with it.

"You" != "me".  You are the one who is asserting that the routing sky  
will fall if the current monopolistic command economy alters.  I  
believe ISPs will look out for themselves and do what is necessary to  
protect their own infrastructure such that they can continue to  
operate.  You appear to see the ISPs as victims without any control  
over their own fate.  Maybe they are and I should sell their stock  
short.

>> What is your proposed alternative to a market in IPv4 addresses  
>> and, more importantly, how are you going to enforce it?
> IPv6, and publicly arguing against betting the Internet in the  
> absence of a solid plan.

So you are saying that other than everyone magically transitioning to  
IPv6 before IPv4 free pool exhaustion, you have no alternative and no  
way to enforce the status quo.  Strangely enough, that is what I am  
suggesting.  I guess where we differ is in the assumption that the  
lack of a solid plan implies the law of supply and demand is rescinded.

Regards,
-drc