Re: IP network address assignments/allocations information?

[Christian Huitema <huitema at research.telcordia.com>]

At 06:08 PM 12/9/99 +0100, Sean Doran wrote:

>So, forgive me for asking a stupid question, but RFC 2374 is
>full of oddities, especially in s3.2.   Are you of the belief that
>as a matter of policy, everyone but "top level" providers will have
>addresses from a "top level" provider, with no exceptions?

Let's put it this way: the registries are instructed that only top level
providers should get one of these addresses. Everyone who does not qualify
supposedly get a delegation from a TLA, or several delegations in the case
of multi-homed networks. Who qualifies is indeed an interesting matter of
debate for the policy councils of the registries.

>Do you also beleive that for inter-TLA routing information-exchange 
>purposes, with respect to the destination address, ONLY the 13 (to
>21) TLA (+ RES) bits you mention should ever be considered by a
>router in the core of the global network, except where two
>directly-peering TLAs agree to exchange some NLA information?

Yes, absolutely. There should not be a requirement that inter-TLA routing
carries anything else, except for bilateral agreements on a voluntary
basis. It should be entirely within the specs for a backbone provider to
ignore all announcements that are more specific than the TLA bits.
-- Christian Huitema