filtering /48 is going to be necessary

Fri Mar 9 23:05:13 UTC 2012

On Mar 9, 2012, at 2:07 PM, Brandon Butterworth wrote:

>> From: Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com>
>>> We had this discussion on the list exactly a year ago.  At that time,
>>> the average IPv6 origin ASN was announcing 1.43 routes.  That figure
>>> today is 1.57 routes per origin ASN.
>> 
>> That represents a 10% growth in prefix/asn for IPv6.
>> 
>> Compare to 9.3->9.96/ASN (7%) in IPv4 over that same time, While
>> I would agree that this is a trend that merits watching, I think
>> we're probably OK for quite some time.
> 
> By the time it's a problem it'll not be fixable.
> 
> I've been a supporter of classful allocation of v6 such as Bill mentioned
> (http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/2009-November/015521.html)
> there's enough space for it but people don't want to do classful again.
> 
> If there isn't standard filtering of defined prefix/lengths by major
> carriers then we're just waiting for the problem to arrive. I don't
> think we'd get enough people to agree on this to avoid it.
> 
> brandon

My opposition to this ill-conceived idea has nothing to do with favor of nor opposition to classful addressing.

My opposition comes from the fact that this could very easily become an additional tool used by larger players in the peering wars to disadvantage smaller players. Handing one side an RIR-sponsored tactical nuclear weapon is, IMHO, on the face of it a bad idea. The proposal for classful allocation that Bill floated in the thread above would constitute doing exactly that. If you will review the thread, you will find that is my stated reason for opposition at the time as well.

Owen