[address-policy-wg] Just say *NO* to PI space -- or how to make it lessdestructive

On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com wrote:
great idea, finaly others that also have thought baout it... however, yeah 
it's a great change of the way Internet are and exist, and work... but 
it's doable. Guess the ISP just hate the idea tho...

<snip>
> 
> Now that is a very interesting suggestion. If you assume
> that multiple peering points in a single city have rich 
> and cheap interconnection, you could extend this idea
> to one prefix per city with a population greater than
> 100,000. There are about 5000 such cities in the world
> so we are talking about 5000 prefixes. Of course, each
> of these cities serves a larger surrounding area with
> various services and such services often reach across
> national borders. For instance, the inhabitants of Kehl
> and Offenburg in Germany are likely to use services in
> Strasbourg, France such as the Opera du Rhin, shopping,
> etc. 
> 
> If you consider these large cities as centres of gravity
> for the surrounding area, then these 5000 cities cover
> almost all of the populated surface of the Earth. What
> could we do with 5000 such routes in the global routing 
> table?
> 
> Well, for one thing, we could offer an almost unlimited
> number of PI IPv6 address blocks to ever business or
> organization that feels the need to multihome in order
> to secure the separacy plus resiliency that need in
> their network connections. All of those PI blocks would
> be invisible in 4999 of the world's cities because those
> cities will only see the single city prefix. We then have
> solved the routing table scaling problem by dividing
> and conquering. There still could be some localised issues
> in some cities, but it is much simpler for a group of
> local ISPs to sort out a local issue than it is for everybody
> in the world to agree on the one true routing solution.
> 
> The best part of this solution is that it requires no
> protocol changes, no new code in routers, and works with
> all existing IPv6 technology. It can be implemented entirely
> by changing RIR allocation rules, and ISP business practices.
> This is not a "flag day" situation either. There is no need
> to stop issuing and using provider aggregatable addresses.
> These new geo-topo aggregatable addresses can coexist in the
> same network. Some ISPs will choose to only assign one kind
> of addresses, either classic PA or new geo-topo addresses. Others
> will use both and use the newer ones to provide new services.
> 
> The only area where business practices needs to change is
> inside a single city aggregate where the ISPs inside that
> aggregate have to agree on how to exchange traffic and how
> to deal with the hot-potato nature of geo-topo routing. 
> Each city is free to come up with its own variation on this
> as long as they do not deaggregate the city aggregate address
> block outside of bilateral peering agreements. In other words,
> ISPs in London will see only a single route to all of the geo-topo
> space in Paris unless they have specific bilateral agreements
> with Paris ISPs.
> 
> Remember we have reserved 7/8ths of the IPv6 address space in
> order to be able to implement these types of new addressing schemes.
> The main problem to be solved in order to deploy this, other
> than general agreement on the scheme, is how to size each of the
> 5000 city aggregate blocks. Geographers and economists would likely
> find this easy work, but we have to make contact with them, explain
> the problem, and ask for their analyses.
> 
> > Won't take long until the first ISPs fall. And then more and more will 
> have
> > to. There is no strong community, apart from those customers with
> > lots-o-money.
> 
> Most businesses only survive and thrive because they serve their 
> customers well. Any ISP that expects to have a strong future must
> understand the needs of their customer base and then organize their
> company resources to serve those customers. This means that ISPs who
> see this as a battle of the PROVIDERS (with PA addresses) against the
> END USERS (with subnets assigned from PA blocks) are doomed. Providers
> have to look at this problem from the end user point of view and then
> find some solution that meets the end user needs while at the same
> time offering the ability for the provider to continue providing
> valuable services.
> 
> In general, as you point out, these situations are like a steamroller
> and end user demand will win out in the end. However, we can avoid a
> period of chaos and instability if the providers take the lead and
> manage an orderly transition to the new network order.
> 
> --Michael Dillon
> 
> 

-- 


------------------------------
Roger Jorgensen              |
roger at jorgensen.no           | - IPv6 is The Key!
-------------------------------------------------------