Re: A slight call to order (Re: Internic address allocation policy )

[George Herbert <gherbert () crl com>]

Paul writes:
> Second, I've seen Karl and now Alan misuse a term.  I'll pick on Alan since his
> message is right in front of me, but the complaint is general (sorry Alan!):

That was me, actually.

> > Taking a relatively small chunk of the remaining address space
> > (say, 210.*.*.*) gives us 64k addresses to hand out in convenient
>
> That's 16M addresses, not 64K addresses.  We should not equivocate "addresses"
> and "Class C networks".  210.*.*.* has 2^24 (minus subnet zero and broadcast
> lossage) addresses -- 16M.  210.*.*.* has 2^16 "Class C networks" -- 64K.  We
> must not assume that every customer will get a Class C -- many will get just a
> subnet since they will only have a handful of hosts.  I know of several 
> providers who are chopping things up on nybble boundaries (16 hosts/net, or
> actually 14 with the subnet zero and broadcast taken out).

I slipped.  It's 64k class C networks.  I know better, but yesterday was 
a long day.

If all the router vendors supported nybble-sized routing, things would be
a lot easier for providers.  If there was an easy named db syntax to fix
in-addr mapping syntax for nybble-sized routing, things would be a lot 
easier for providers.  Paul can perhaps fix one of these issues (in his
copious spare time? 8-), the other one is a more general problem.  

-george william herbert
gherbert () crl com