Re: IP network address assignments/allocations information?

[Bill Sommerfeld]

> Raw numbers of prefxies are pretty impressive.  A IPv4 /20 is 4k "host"
> addresses. An IPv6 /116 is the same sized "chunk" so, the total number of
> 
> /20s in the IPv4 world:  1024000     (stuff that into your router)
> /116s in a /48 chunk:    34359738368 (is that right?)

that looked a little small to me, so i had a nearby scheme interpreter
do the math:

> (expt 2 20)
1048576
> (expt 2 (- 116 48))
295147905179352825856
> (expt 2 40)
1099511627776
> (expt 2 128)
340282366920938463463374607431768211456

One thing worth noting is that anyone out there who has a *single*
ipv4 address has a /48 in ipv6 space already, thanks to the 6to4
mechanism..

It seems obvious to me that the only way routing can scale with
addresses this large is with very aggressive aggregation.

The only way multihoming can work when aggressive aggregation is in
place is if hosts end up with multiple addresses (one from each
prefix) and know how to use them intelligently... and, if we can
manage to get that to work well, it has the advantage that end sites
-- even very small ones -- will be able to multihome merely by buying
service from multiple providers..

It does make life interesting for mid-level providers which want to
multihome, though.

                                        - Bill