North American Network Operators Group
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Re: IPv6 news

  • From: Crist Clark
  • Date: Thu Oct 13 12:29:47 2005 
[email protected] wrote:

   Percentage of available address space announced:               38.6

You misunderstand what IP addresse are. They have nothing
whatsoever to do with the Internet. The address space
announced on the Internet is an entirely separate issue.

IP addresses were established as part of the development
of a networking protocol called the Internet Protocol,
or IP for short. This protocol was designed to allow
many independent networks to interconnect or internetwork
and exchange traffic. In order for such internetworks
to work they need to be allocated unique IP addresses.

The prerequisite for receiving globally unique IP
addresses is that you have to be using IP technology
and have a need to internetwork with other networks.
There are several such IP internetworks that are
entirely separate from the public (big I) Internet.
That's where the other addresses are used and their
usage is growing at about the same rate as Internet
usage is growing.

While I do not necessarily disagree with this point of view (as I work
for a company who uses allocated space in such a manner), others may
argue that addresses that are assigned through the Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (that's Internet with the "I") are meant for Internet,
with an "I," use. As it says at the top of their web page, "Dedicated
to preserving the central coordinating functions of the global Internet
for the public good." Note, "global Internet."

ObOnSubject: Of course, getting PI space for non-global Internet use
is one of the big problems with current IPv6 allocation policy that
make it difficult to start building private IPv6 networks now.
--
Crist J. Clark                               [email protected]
Globalstar Communications                                (408) 933-4387