Class D addresses? was: Redploying most of 127/8 as unicast public

Michael Thomas mike at mtcc.com
Sat Nov 20 20:50:01 UTC 2021


On 11/20/21 12:37 PM, William Herrin wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 20, 2021 at 12:03 PM Michael Thomas <mike at mtcc.com> wrote:
>> Was it the politics of ipv6 that
>> this didn't get resolved in the 90's when it was a lot more tractable?
> No, in the '90s we didn't have nearly the basis for looking ahead. We
> might still have invented a new way to use IP addresses that required
> a block that wasn't unicast. It was politics in the 2000's and the
> 2010's, as it is today.

In the early to mid 90's it was still a crap shoot of whether IP was 
going to win (though it was really the only game in town for non-lan) 
but by when I started at Cisco in 1998 it was the clear winner with 
broadband starting to roll out. It was also obvious that v4 address 
space was going to run out which of course was the core reason for v6. 
So I don't understand why this didn't get done then when it was a *lot* 
easier. It sure smacks of politics.

Mike



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