IP Addresses Do Not Wear Out

[Jim Fleming <JimFleming@doorstep.unety.net>]

On Monday, April 13, 1998 4:48 PM, Karl Denninger[SMTP:karl@mcs.net] wrote:
<snip>
@
@If you are EVER going to need a /19, you're going to consume one.  If that
@time period is longer than the time during which IPv4 must last, it is
@incumbent on ARIN to give the space out.  The reason is simple - the REAL
@resource we're protecting here is routing table entries, not address space.
@

This is a very important point that people seem to miss, even the so-called
experts at ARIN. For some reason, people have been lead to believe that if
IPv4 addresses are handed out that they some how get "used" up and wear
out and can not be recycled. Furthermore, people seem to think that if IPv4
addresses are handed out in large blocks and the company goes bankrupt
that the same size large block does not get reclaimed.

As a solution to these two myths, people develop policies which stock-pile
massive amounts of address space at USC/ISI (IANA) while the rest of the
world works in a tiny corner of the total space and when they do get allocations
they get small fragments which are prone to being lost and never recycled.

If instead, larger blocks are given out freely based on routing table entry
availability then one would find that the addresses that are sitting on the
shelf at USC/ISI could be put to good use helping to REDUCE the number
of routing table entries. Currently, they serve no use and could be considered
to be one huge routing table entry which is equivalent to routing packets
for those addresses to /dev/null at USC/ISI.

Furthermore, larger, more consistent blocks would make the recycling
job easier and would lower the cost of operations like ARIN. Basically,
it would be a process where an ISP would FIRST secure routing table
entries and obtain upstream provider affidavits and then would approach
ARIN to "check out" a large block. If they go belly up, the large block
gets reclaimed. ARIN does not even have to send a truck to pick it up.



-
Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation
IBC, Tortola, BVI