[ppml] IPv6>>32

[David Conrad]

Michael,

On May 10, 2005, at 3:32 AM, Michael.Dillon at radianz.com wrote:
> Some people will switch providers on a daily basis.

I am somewhat skeptical that people will switch providers as you  
suggest when it takes end-user intervention to implement that  
switch.  Renumbering remains a non-trivial exercise.  Connections  
break.  Firewall rules change.  Network management objects have to be  
updated.  Etc. Until renumbering is addressed (no pun intended), I  
suspect the scenarios of *ANs switching providers rapidly will remain  
a fantasy.

> I think we are allocating less than in the past. In IPv4 we give
> a new ISP 20 bits of address space. In IPv6 we give him 32 bits
> in his prefix. Therefore the IPv6 ISP is getting a much smaller
> fraction of the total address space than the IPv4 ISP.

Lies, damn lies, and fractions of address space.  While what you say  
might be true, it is irrelevant.  As far as I'm aware, no ISP (or  
anyone else, with the possible exception of the ITU) views the amount  
of address space they manage in terms of the fraction of total  
address space nor do I suspect they care.  What they care about is  
having sufficient addresses to satisfy their customer requests and  
internal infrastructure demands.  The fraction of address space  
they've been allocated is not a useful metric to judge sufficiency  
(IMHO).

Rgds,
-drc