regionalized addresses, RIRs, and table size

["Joseph T. Klein" <jtk@titania.net>]

IMHO - The concept of geographic based, or regionalized addresses
recently mentioned seems to merit some review in light of recent
other discussions.

Possible positive impacts of geographic based IPv6 addresses are:

* Ability to have smaller allocations within a region without
   bloating the global rout table.

* It compliments regional peering.

* It tends to aggregate globally.

Negative

* Impact of networks without extra regional topologies

In gross terms the RIRs provide Continental regionalization.
The inefficencies of shifting the aggregation level down to a
metro region size may be offset by the gains in allowing small
allocation for local multi-homed sites, the need to bloat
ones allocation requirement to get a globally routable block
being irrelevant under this scheme.

All the tricks required to do multihoming under the current
address architecture seem to inject new complexities into
routing and possibly the interface at the application layer.

Point:

All the multi-homed proposals seem a lot more of a problem
than geographic based address allocation. Why not apply
the analog of Occam's Razor to this problem. If geographic
allocations provide the simple solution, why not reevaluate?
--
Joseph T. Klein
  "Perfect is the enemy of good enough."
                                          -- Admiral S.G. Gorshkov
PSTN: +1 414 961 1690 VoIP: +1 414 431 4231 Mobile: +1 414 628 3380