[ppml] Suggestion for ARIN to deligate smaller IP blocks

[Jon Lewis]

On Fri, 8 Jun 2007, David E. Smith wrote:

> In the meantime, though, I've got a couple thousand IPs that I'm not
> (presently) using.
>
> Is it better to have folks like me potentially sitting on address space
> that someone else could be using now? Or is it better to try to keep the
> global routing table from ballooning even more?

That depends on how many of "you" there are and on how successfully you 
grow.  Due to changes in core business, our IP usage has always been 
difficult if not downright impossible to predict.  When I've asked ARIN 
for more space, we've always gotten much more than we actually ended up 
using in the short term...but we've always grown and eventually filled it. 
First we went from a /18 to a /17 (much like you went from a /20 to a 
/19).  Then we got an additional /19.  We also have a /20 from an ISP we 
borged, eventually dismantled, and recycled the space.  This has happened 
over the course of 8 years.  Was the fact that at times we had thousands 
of spare IPs worth the tradeoff that we only announce 3 CIDRs from our 
ASN?  Going "by the book" (if our IP usage had been easily predicted) we'd 
have gotten many more smaller allocations, and be announcing several times 
the number of routes.  Fewer larger routes benefits everyone.


----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Jon Lewis                   |  I route
  Senior Network Engineer     |  therefore you are
  Atlantic Net                |
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