Re: IPv4 address length technical design

[joel jaeggli <joelja () bogus com>]

On 10/4/12 1:31 AM, Marco Hogewoning wrote:
> On Oct 4, 2012, at 12:21 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>
> > IEEE 802 was expected to provide unique numbers for all computers ever built.
> >
> > Internet was expected to provide unique numbers for all computers actively on the network.
> >
> > Obviously, over time, the latter would be a declining percentage of the former since the former is increasing and never 
> > decrements while the latter could (theoretically) have a growth rate on either side of zero and certainly has some 
> > decrements even if the increments exceed the decrements.
> Which brings the question, are we expected to ever run out of the 48 bits for mac-addresses? Of course there are 
> exceptions, but in most cases you can probably start recycling them after a certain period. And that period could even 
> become shorter over time, I mean what are the chances you find a iPhone 1 in your network these days?

The IEEE/RAC regards the consistent enforcement of these restrictions as a
fundamental and realistic basis for ensuring longevity of the EUI-48 
identifier
capability, with a target lifetime of 100 years for existing 
applications using EUI-48
identifiers.

http://standards.ieee.org/develop/regauth/tut/eui.pdf

> Marco