Re: economies of scale (was Re: solution to NAT...)

[Keith Moore <moore at cs.utk.edu>]

> > [PPP over TCP through NATs] doesn't provide any more global address space
> 
> Why create more supply when it can be so easy to reduce demand?

reducing demand is exactly what has been done with IPv4 address
allocation policies. something like this was probably necessary;
however, this has had the unfortunate side-effect of encouraging 
deployment of NATs - thereby impairing the ability of the IPv4 
Internet to support new applications.   the only way to restore 
the missing functionality is to provide a global address space.

what we are seeing is not a result of a failure to conserve
addresses, but a secondary effect of the conservation policy.

we are accustomed to thinking of conservation as a Good Thing,
but an effective conservation plan can actually make a system 
less able to cope with fluctuations in load.

Keith