Fixed Boundary (/29) Assignments

Dear all,

In my presentation to the Working Group at RIPE 38 [0] I brought up the 
issue of assignment policies for ISPs wanting to assign all customers a 
fixed size network (/29).

The RIPE NCC is experiencing an increase of requests for this type of setup 
and would therefore like the community's input on this matter.

There is no specific mention of broadband connections or fixed-boundary 
assignments in the current policy. However, we believe that the policy now 
requires LIRs to make assignments on the usage-based requirements of the 
subscriber. This is consistent with the RIRs' goal of conservation.

The method of assigning a standard prefix size is certainly quite wasteful 
as one quarter of the space is lost on network and broadcast addresses.

The requester justification for this assignment method is an estimation of 
the number of customers taking IP based services or having multiple 
Internet connected terminals at home.

As a reference, it may be worth noting that in recent discussions on the 
IETF mailing list, Bernard Aboba estimates [1] that currently 27% of homes 
have multiple 'PCs'. It is difficult to predict the take-up of non-Internet 
IP-based services.

Based on the above, we would like the Working Group to consider whether:

 -  a standard, fixed-boundary assignment is acceptable for residential 
    broadband connections?

Or

 -  should the requester (the LIR) be required to ask the subscriber how 
    many IP devices will be connected and base the assignment upon this?

Regards,

leo vegoda
RIPE NCC Hostmaster
[0] http://www.ripe.int/ripe/wg/lir/present/
[1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/ietf/Current/msg10586.html