The idea behind possibly making the policy stricter would be to keep all of those "I want one too" people from getting an ASN number who do not have a clear need and therefore conserve resources. Only because you have the ability to give out ASNs does not me you should. Human nature dictates for most people that if it is available they want one also regardless of if the need exists.

I have no problems with the phased move to 32-bit ASNs; it is a logical step towards the future. I don't see what the big deal is; although I do not write the code for the network equipment it seems

I was just throwing in the example of the private AS numbers to try and preempt anyone who might try to use that example if any on how transiting to 32-bit AS numbers would somehow cause a collapse of the world as we know it (It was not the best example). Let me qualify my statement; personally I don't think the policies in place should be anymore strict then they already are or changed in any fashion for the given circumstances (If the given circumstances change, well then I reserve the right to change my mind on the issue as do the governing bodies, and anyone else who wishes to change their mind); that being said I also do not believe the policies should be relaxed in any fashion (why add trouble if you do not have to). The current ASN policies are pretty cut and dry as to who can receive a non-private ASN and who cannot. I think overall you and I agree on this. Chris -----Original Message----- From: Owen DeLong [mailto:owen@delong.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 12:49 PM To: Chris Burton; Pekka Savola Cc: Jeroen Massar; Cliff Albert; nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: 16 vs 32 bit ASNs [Re: BBC does IPv6 ;) (Was: large multi-site enterprises and PI] Actually, no need for trouble with the existing private ASNs. Afterall, RFC 1918 is not exactly taken from any particular end of the IPv4 space. The same situation can exist with private ASNs... They simply become a hole in the list. I don't think we need stricter ASN policies. I think the current policies are quite adequate. If you think that the current policies are not sufficiently strict, I'd be interested in knowing in what way you think they are insufficient. In any case, there isn't a land-rush for ASNs under current policy as far as I can tell, and, I don't think increasing the available bits will change that. Owen --On Tuesday, November 30, 2004 11:38 -0800 Chris Burton <ChrisB@VMC.com> wrote: that

the transition should be fairly transparent since the first 65536 ASN numbers fit snuggly into the a 32-bit schema (there may be issues with the private ASNs, but those also should fairly easy to transition) so there shouldn't be much of a problem for existing users and none for new users with the proper code/equipment. Future transitions to a 64-bit or 128-bit ASN if the need should arise, again I do not see a major issue; but this is just my opinion, YMMV.

Chris

-----Original Message----- From: Pekka Savola [mailto:pekkas@netcore.fi] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 9:44 PM To: Chris Burton Cc: Owen DeLong; Jeroen Massar; Cliff Albert; nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: 16 vs 32 bit ASNs [Re: BBC does IPv6 ;) (Was: large multi-site enterprises and PI]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Chris Burton wrote:

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It is highly doubtful that the policies in place will become more relaxed with the introduction of 32-bit ASNs, the more likely scenario is that they will stay the same or get far stricter as with assignments of IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.

I find this hard to believe. When there is 64K times as much the resource, there is no way the policies would get stricter, because it can easily and logically be argued that they don't need to be stricter.

...

As you had mentioned though, in the near term this definitely would not be scalable, but who knows what is going to happen 10, 15, or more years from now.

So, let's delay the move until we know how to make it more scalable.

...

I think your numbers may be a little off 2^32 = 4,294,967,296; current world population give or take a few million is hovering around 6,300,000,000 according to the US Gov. If everyone and the mother would like an ASN (Which is highly unlikely) you would need just a few more to make that work.

Yeah, I know the calculations :). Everyone can already get an IPv4 address too, right? All we need is an AS number NAT.. oops, it's there already.

Face it, with 32 bit ASNs, pretty much anyone could have an ASN if they wanted to unless the policies were very strict, and it would be very difficult to justify why it would have to be strict because there is so vast resource to be used.