On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Sean Donelan wrote:
Except the current allocation practices seem at odds with the goal of minimizing route table growth. Why is it better to allocate several non-agregatable blocks that are 'just' the right size rather than one aggregatable block the next size larger?
Because a very large number of people who get space from the nic cant cut it and don't grow. Then the block is fine, or needs to be taken back. It is not fun to renumber a /19, but it can be done. Yes, this is more work then a lot of the large backbone providers have to deal with as far as IP apace, but they have been around longer and went through many other problems.
So which do providers really want to minimize, the number of route entries or the size of individual route entries?
Number of routes, I know of 2 ISPs that we provided access to that were mad because the nic gave them /19 and not /18. The providers are now out of business and there are 2 /19 not being used, but at least they are not /18. If the provider did get larger the nic would have gladly taken back the /19 and given them a /18. Nathan Stratton President, NetRail,Inc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phone (888)NetRail NetRail, Inc. Fax (404)522-1939 230 Peachtree Suite 500 WWW http://www.netrail.net/ Atlanta, GA 30303 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34