[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal 103: Change IPv6 Allocation Process- revised

[Martin Hannigan]

On Dec 14, 2009, at 6:42 PM, William Herrin wrote:

> On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 3:43 PM, John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:
> > Needs-based allocation wasn't "invented ad-hoc halfway through the  
> game"...
> > (unless claiming the ARPANET as the starting point for the game :-)
> >
> > As early as 1990 (in the classful, pre-web, single-default  
> Internet), you
> > had to explain your initial, 1, 2, and 5 year address needs in  
> order to
> > obtain address space.  See the following DDN NIC application  
> template,
> > dated April 1990, for the specifics of question 8 & 9 regarding the
> > allocation policy at that time.
>
> John,
>
> I'll concede that the question was asked in the 1990 template. But as
> late as 1995 folks requesting fewer than 16 class C's needed only
> provide a planned subnet and host count. In fact, the instructions on
> justification from the 7/95 template read:
>
>    If you are requesting 16 C's or more (/19 prefix) you
>    will need to complete the network topology plan in the format
>    shown on the template.
>
>    If you are requesting 256 C's or a Class B (/16 prefix) or more,
>    please include a copy of your network diagram.
>
>    Your organization is strongly encouraged to subnet where
>    feasible.
>
> Note the emphasis on subnetting so that you wouldn't consume an entire
> class C for every LAN segment. That's where the heads were in the game
> in 1995. That's what we cared about. Unless you were requesting a lot
> of addresses, deeper questions of "need" were CURSORY.
>

William,

You realize that needs were different circa '95 and that the needs  
then are much different than the needs now hence where the "heads"  
were then? In Sep 94 there were about 84 web sites total (IIRC),  
hosting was done by the address routed to the machine typically and  
RIP was useful. At that time I was answering questions like "what is a  
proxy" "who is this warez guy!" and "why are people wasting our  
capacity going to netscape everytime they open their browser?". The  
needs of yesteryear were much different than the needs of today and  
needs have always been the driver IMHO.

Food for thought.