On 25/11/2004 08:59, Jeroen Massar wrote: 
On Thu, 2004-11-25 at 08:49 +0000, Ryan O'Connell wrote:
  
The BBC are probably a bad example in this case, they're more of an 
ISP/Content Provider than a typical Enterprise.
    

Thus do they reach the currently only 'problem rule' that is set to get
a /32? -> to have 200 sites in the future?

Almost certainly. They're a very large organisation - as well as the international and internet news services you get in the US there is also all the domestic broadcasting, worldwide radio, production, merchandising etc.

The BBC is for sure one organization, with likely a couple of sites
though, but 200 would seem a bit on the high side.

Well, there will probably be at least one office for every county in the UK, (For regional TV and radio) several large buildings in London, all the international offices, the various data centres...

Nevertheless, if they can get it why can't you as an 'enterprise', or
are you just a few persons sitting in a shack with a 'company'?

I've worked for quite a few smaller companies where Internet access for one reason or another is business-critical. Examples would be: (I've not worked for all of the companies listed, but I know about their networks at least)
- Any of a large variety of companies doing financial transactions online - (e.g. www.olf.co.uk, they do car finance via brokers over the internet)
- On-line gambling companies (www.betfair.com being the largest in the UK I think, the sums of money involved are huge)
- Content providers (E.g. www.digex.com, before they were bought out by MCI. I doubt google have 200 sites either.)
- Small and Medium sized telecoms providers - (e.g. www.mblox.com - SMS connectivity is provided over VPNs to various European/US carriers. Also pretty much any VoIP operator.)
- Aviation companies (The ones I've worked for have long since gone bust)

None of these companies typically has more than four or five sites - an office or two and a couple of data centres. The largest of those I've listed is probably about 10-15 sites. As long as we have the current "200 sites for an IPv6 assignment" rule, they can't get a redundantly routable IPv6 block and there will be a significant resistance to finally phasing out IPv4. At least in Europe, when it does come to crunch time I can see the RIRs being hit *very* hard with a series of lawsuits for monopolistic/anti-competitive behaviour from some of these people - bear in mind the financial companies will have laywers on staff and simply can not afford to lose redundancy.