[address-policy-wg] [policy-announce] 2011-05 Last Call for Comments (Safeguarding future IXPs with IPv4 space)

On 8 May 2012, at 10:23, Erik Bais wrote:

> In the grand scheme of things and also seeing the other policies popping up for trying to divide whatever is going to be left from the final /8.
> 
> If we all think that this reservation is a good thing for the good of the internet ... (And I agree on the reasoning) is reserving only a /16 from the final /8 enough?
> 
> 65k /24's are in the last /8 ... and for future IXP's we 'only' reserve a /16 (256 /24's )
> 
> I would rather see that increased to a /14 if possible.

This was discussed at the eix-wg and address-policy in Vienna.  There are 133 known IXPs in Europe (according to Euro-IX) at the moment, and whilst we would all love to see more and more regional peering, the consideration was that reserving addressing room for another ~200 IXPs (in the European region) ... before IPv6 is prevalent ... is acceptable.  

I trust this answers your concern ?  In summary this is a valid question, but it was considered at the time the proposal was drafted.

And, if we run out of space for new IXPs before v6 prevalence, then whither the very internet, my colleagues ?

Andy Davidson
(EIX-WG Co-chair, 2011-05 author, IXP operator)