Pragmatism (was Re: [ppml] Re: 2005-1:Multi-national Business Enablement)

> Especially because the ITU's managed address space has not run out.

Only because ITU's managed address space is not fixed in length.  It's
easy not to run out of places to the right of the decimal.  What's hard
is doing it in a way that can be globally routed on a packet switched
network.  The ITU has never managed a packet switched network or resources
in support of a packet switched network, so, this is not an apples-to-apples
comparison.

The ITU, to my knowledge, regulates two principle forms of addresses, and,
actually, the ITU only regulates the PREFIX portion in both cases:

	Radio Call Signs
	Telephone Numbers

In the case of Radio Call signs, for example, the ITU has assigned to the
US all callsigns starting with the letters A, K, N, and W.

I think there are some holes in the US "K" allocation for some of the
Pacific
Islands, but, I don't have my ARRL map handy at the moment.

Anyway, the key here is that the US can put whatever it wants after the
A, K, N, or W to make a callsign.  If the US runs out of callsigns that
look like W6X, the US creates callsigns that look like W6ZX, WA6ZX, WB6RFZ,
etc.  If they run out of those, then, they can create callsigns that look
like KGRDE3912834EAEFKK3KJ3141JHJ if they so choose, so, the only way for
the ITU to run out of callsigns is to allocate all the prefixes.

However, the way the ITU has prevented this is that as they started to get
short on letters to hand out, they stopped handing out letters, and,
started handing out prefixes like VK4, VE, etc.  Again, since they can
make the prefix as long as they choose any time they choose, it's easy to
not run out.


In the case of telephone numbers, the ITU only allocates country codes.
Country codes can also be expanded to any length the ITU chooses as needed.
For example, the US+Canada is country code 1.  Russia is 7.  Other countries
have 2 digit (and, if memory serves, some even have 3 digit codes).

> IPv4's is allegedly (prompting IPv6), so if we deplete v6 also the ITU
> can claim "we've never exhausted an address pool but they have - twice!"

They could, but, they'd be making a very specious claim about completely
unrelated issues.


Owen


-- 
If it wasn't crypto-signed, it probably didn't come from me.
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