[ppml] Policy Proposal 2005-1: Provider-independent IPv6

[Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com]

> "PI" does not mean that it will end up in the DFZ, it will
> most likely, but it might not. A company can decide to internally use
> the PI space, so that they have globally unique address space, but when
> accessing services on the internet they might proxy (or NAT or shim6)
> this address space and thus effectively connect from the address space
> their upstream provider provids them.

Indeed so. My company operates a private internet for a thousand or
so companies. Although most addresses used on this internet are 
assigned by us, some companies have their own allocations. This is
an example of allocations (in this case both PA and PI) that do not
consume global routing table slots. We are not the only company
to run such an internet and in the future I expect to see more and
more of this kind of architecture. Because these are IP internets,
the companies involved are fully justified in registering globally
unique IP address ranges. In fact, they often have security policies
in place which verify that the allocations are in the RIR whois system.

If you look at any analysis of IP address consumption you will see
that there is a significant chunk of address space which is not
announced in the global routing system. There is NOT a direct
tie-in between a PI allocation and a global routing table slot.

> For the coming years though indeed
> most PI blocks will pop up in the DFZ. But what is the issue there? If
> you are a large transit, you simply let your client PAY for announcing
> that prefix into the DFZ. No pay? -> No route. That is if you really are
> that scared that your hardware can't handle it, and if it can't,
> something I said to a certain "Large Tier 1 Transit" before: UPGRADE!
> (and when the economics don't work out for you, you might want to start
> rethinking if you are in the wrong business or not ;)

Indeed true. If the routing table growth is increasing your costs
by forcing earlier than expected upgrades, you should be shifting
those costs on to the customers who are generating the additional
slot consumption. Perhaps you should be discussing this issue internally
with your finance and legal people to make sure your contracts cover
this eventuality. ARIN does not tell you to provide service for free.

--Michael Dillon