LET'S JUST GO AROUND

[Alan Barrett]

Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu said:
> So it's possible that you don't get a prefix big enough to really
> multihome until you have so many subscribers that you have 2K of them
> connected *AT ONE TIME*.

You seem to be assuming that there's something magical about "/19".  I am
assuming that, if you offer sufficient value in return, people whom you
would like to carry your route will indeed be willing to carry your route,
regardless of its prefix length.  The "value" can be in the form of money,
or of interesting reachable destinations.

If there's any magic in "/19", it's simply that it's perceived as a size
that is likely to cover a reasonable number of interesting reachable
destinations, so there's an incentive for folk to carry the route without
a direct exchange of cash.  If you get your "/19" just by saying saying "I
need to multihome and I don't want to be filtered", then it will no longer
be safe for the controllers of the filters to make the assumption that a
/19 route is likely to cover a lot of interesting destinations.  In other
words, the benefit to others from their carrying your /19 that you
couldn't justify under RFC2050 rules, will be lower than the benefit to
others of their carrying somebody else's /19 that _was_ justified under
RFC2050.  Suddenly, "/19" just lost that "magic" "guarantee" that it's
sufficiently interesting for folk to want to carry the route free of
charge.

But I think this is getting significantly off topic for naipr.  I will let
Karl, Tim and Valdis have the last word if they wish, but I expect this to
be my last message in this thread. 

--apb (Alan Barrett)