[ipv6-wg] Re: [address-policy-wg] Re: 200 customer requirements for IPv6

> ... and free transit into each geographical region would be mandatory
> ???
> 
> Aggregation across multiple administrative domains isn't just a minor
> technical change. It would eliminate the transit-provider business
> model. Disruptive technologies are facts of life and nobody has a
> god-given right to existence, but don't expect long-haul carriers to
> give up their business without a fight.

Transit provider business models are not the same everywhere.
Nobody will be forced to give anyone free transit. Yes,
it is true that geotop aggregation leads to more use of
cold-potato routing, but that is a problem for the providers
to deal with. If they want to use geotop aggregation and
if it results in a shift of traffic patterns and if that
requires negotiating new business models or transit contracts
then there are no technical barriers to doing this.

RIRs can only make addressing policy, not mandate business
models. As long as geotop addressing is implemented in addition
to the classical IPv6 addressing model, nobody will be forced
to do anything that they don't want to. However, new entrants
into the market will be able to do things that are impossible
today. This will lead to change.

The fact that a new addressing policy does not create miracles,
only possibilities, is not sufficient reason to oppose such
a policy.

In fact, it is likely that existing providers will dip their toes
in the water and make some limited use of geotop addressing to enable
them to offer new metro-multihoming services to small organizations
that only need multihoming within a single city. This is fairly
straightfoward to do. In addition to geotop addressing, it only
requires two providers to negotiate a local peering agreement and
that is probably already in place for classic IPv4 peering.

In any case, none of these problems are insurmountable and none
of them dilute the case for geotop addressing as AN ADDITIONAL
OPTIONAL TYPE OF IPV6 ADDRESSING.

--Michael Dillon