[ppml] geo addressing

[Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com]

> > Reserve, not allocate. Someone still has to do the tough
> > work of analyzing world populations and the limits to growth
> > in order to come up with some measure of how much networking
> > activity to expect in each part of the world. This analysis
> > is needed to determine how big /x is for each city and how
> > to aggregate cities into larger sub-continental aggregates.

>    Michael, why do you think that "world population"
>    is even remotely associated w/ address utilization?

I don't think that.
I do think that regional population is related to the amount
of economic activity (number of transactions) which is 
related to the amount of communication which is related to
the number of devices which is related to the number of 
IP addresses. In order to do geotopological allocation,
one has to make a decision as to how many addresses go
to each city. This decision should be based on real economic
information regarding the projected population and the
limits to growth in the various regions.

In some cases, higher populations mean that fewer
IPv6 addresses need to be reserved because fewer economic
transactions will take place, i.e. people will not be buying
iPods, music tracks, and phone conversations.

Geographers and economists can provide the science needed
to fairly divide IPv6 geo addresses between the 5,000 biggest
cities in the world. The existing non-geo IPv6 addresses and
the rest of the reserved IPv6 addresses, provide a buffer in
case something unpredictable happens, for instance, if
the Western half of the USA sinks beneath the ocean and this
results in a population surge in Mexico's former deserts
and the Sahara, then we are not completely stuck.

>    of bit streams.  Not people.  Devices.  So unless your "world
>    populations" and "limits to growth" are applied to devices,
>    i can't really buy into your arguments ...  except as an
>    intellectual exercise and -perhaps- worthy of a limited operational
>    trial.  If only to empericially test the viability of this
>    approach.

We need to estimate the number of devices on the network in
2050 and at the end of the century. I believe that the information
needed to make that estimate for the 5,000 largest population
centers in the world, already exists. We need to somehow engage
with the geographers and economists who have this information
in order to map out a reasonable plan for dividing up a geotopological
address space and then launch a trial of this addressing plan
in cities where there is already a tradition of local interconnect.

But this can't be done by ARIN alone. This really needs support
from other RIRs and the NRO. In particular, the NRO is involved
with international organizations which have access to the kind 
of geographical and economic data that we need.

--Michael Dillon