Dual stack IPv6 for IPv4 depletion

Thu Jul 9 08:23:32 UTC 2015

> On Jul 8, 2015, at 21:55 , Ricky Beam <jfbeam at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 08 Jul 2015 22:49:17 -0400, Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:
>> You, we, all of us have to stop using the present to limit the future.
>> What IS should not be used to define what SHOULD BE.
>> 
>> What people NOW HAVE in their homes should not be used to dictate to
>> them what they CAN HAVE in their homes, which is what you do when you
>> provide them only with non-globally-routable address space (IPv4 NAT),
>> or too few subnets (IPv6 /56) to name just two examples.
> 
> Talking about IPv6, we aren't carving a limit in granite. 99.99999% of home networks currently have no need for multiple networks, and thus, don't ask for anything more; they get a single /64 prefix. If tomorrow they need more, set the hint to 60 and they get a /60. Need more, ask for 56... CURRENTLY, providers have their DHCP server(s) set to a limit of 56. But that's simply a number in a config file; it can be changed as easily as it was set the first time. (source pool size and other infrastructure aside.) It's just like the escalation of speeds: as the need for it rises, it becomes available. (in general, at least)

But we are carving a limit in stone without realizing it.

Changing the network to give out larger prefixes is easy.

However, developers consistently develop to the lowest common denominator.

Don’t believe me? Try to use any of a variety of mobile apps to control a non-NAT device in your home from your cell phone when you’re not in the same broadcast domain as the device you want to control.

The developers have assumed that:

	1.	Every household is behind NAT
	2.	Every household is a single broadcast domain
	3.	There’s never any need to talk to a device that isn’t within the same broadcast domain as the handset.
	4.	Nobody would ever want to use their cell phone to control their $PRODUCT without putting it on the wifi network
		and the $PRODUCT wired network interface will always be bridged to the wifi on the same subnet, right?

Given how baked in these bad assumptions have become, I shudder at the thought of how long after ISPs start issuing /48s it will take before we start to see useful products designed with that expectation in mind.

Owen