Harold:

The problem of route aggregation is not "casual"
it is fundamental, and you can't "casually dismiss" it
with hand-waving about the inter-relationship of
technology and policy. You'll just look ignorant to
people who have to deal with the problem.

You show me a way to overcome the need for route
aggregation and the whole problem of access to addresses
changes radically. Everyone would be better off.
If you can't show me a way, then you have no choice
but to work within the constraints of the current system.
This is not to say that ways of improving access to
addresses by small players can't be found within
the current framework. But for that to happen, you
MUST recognize the fundamental technical constraints
that are currently affecting address policy, you can't
dismiss or ignore them.

>>> Harold Feld <[log in to unmask]> 9/9/2004 3:57:03 PM >>>

At 02:52 PM 9/9/2004, Milton Mueller wrote:
>And you can't get "a single IP address" from any RIR. Perhaps you
>can from an ISP (I have never tried). The critical constraint here,
>which few people seem to understand, is the need for route
>aggregation. In other words, ISPs must be given their addresses
>in contiguous number blocks so that they can reduce the number of
>routes identified in their routing tables by lumping those contiguous
>addresses together into one route. That is why you can't have
>IP address portability under the current system.

As with all things, technology and policy go hand in hand.  The current

policies evolved from a combination of circumstances: limitations of
technology, the need to protect legacy systems, and the concerns of the

people formulating the policy.  There is, and continues to be,
implications
for the real world that result from the purely technical issues of
routing.  There is, and continues to be, opportunity for the
considerations
of the real world to impact how technical decisions are made.  It is
simply
not the case that these concerns can be casually dismissed as the
natural
order of things.