[arin-discuss] Trying to Understand IPV6

[michael.dillon at bt.com]

> This was, of course, the point of my question.  It would seem that
> whoever came up with the crazy scheme of 64bit subnets never thought
> about how many ISP's and customers there are.in the world.  We could
> have accommodated all the ISP's in the universe each of whom could
> accommodate all the customers in the universe to ensure nobody would
> ever have to go back for more allocations.  Is there a link that would
> describe "what is the reasoning (if any) behind the math?"

It is indeed math, not arithmetic as you described above. And it is
related to the probability of collisions if you use an algorithm that
chooses addresses randomly. This is being done to enable auto confifguration
of devices. If you want links, start reading the pages at http://www.getipv6.info
where you will find dozens of links to other sources.

--Michael Dillon