Re: Backward Compatibility Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block

[Charles Polisher <chas () chasmo org>]

Owen DeLong wrote:

> Some, but not a lot. In the case of the DTMF transition, the
> network and handsets were all under the central control of a
> single provider at a time when they could have forced the change
> if they really wanted to. After all, nobody was going to cancel
> their phone service altogether (or such a small fraction of
> subscribers as to count as a rounding error anyway) over the
> issue and AT&T could simply have shipped replacement phones
> with instructions for returning the older phone and done a
> retrofit operation if they really wanted to drive the transition.

True, yet there's a missing piece to that description: ROI.
In the regulated environment with a mandated X% Return On Invest-
ment (X ≈ 15 IIRC) a bigger expense pie was a better pie because
a bigger expense pie meant a bigger return. This was an inexorable
force that influenced every substantive decision. An expanding
rate base was the One True Path to advancing against the demon
competitors: AT&T and other RBOCs.

In the Bell System setting, before and after Divestiture, a
perpetual and costly migration from IPv4 to IPv6 with all the
attendant cost burdens would have been well tolerated, even
welcomed, in the "C Suite" anyways.

--
Charles Polisher