Marty, In the Internet we believe the issue will be name based portability, not address portability. This level of decoupling will permit the functionality of portable 800 numbers. +1 800 I-LIKE-IP is simply a name which the telephone company maps to something which which they in turn route to. It is important not to confuse naming with routing and packet forwarding. It is also important to note that CIDR is based on mask and match so it is not exclusively hierarchical as you imply. It allows for a mixture of flat and hierarchical routing, as the need arises. This must be true since today the Internet exhibits both flat uncoordinated addresses and hierarchically assigned addresses. We seem to be able to route them in together. CIDR allows you to dial in the level of hierarchy you need. This seems to be sound architecturally. cheers, Comrades Peter and Yakov P.S. I always like the way you color our debates in ideological terms, I really enjoy picturing you in a Jeffersonian Wig. -- pf