Re: who gets a /32 [Re: IPV6 renumbering painless?]

[Alex Bligh <alex () alex org uk>]

--On 19 November 2004 09:40 -0800 Owen DeLong <owen () delong com> wrote:

> If it were true, then I would have to renumber
> every time I changed telephone companies.  I don't, so, obviously, there
> is some solution to this problem.

But I'm not sure you'd like it applied to the internet. Firstly, in
essence, PSTN uses static routes for interprovider routing (not quite true,
but nearly - if you add a new prefix everyone else has to build it into
their table on all switches). Secondly, IIRC porting works in the UK
something like - call delivered to switch of operator who owns the block,
marked as ported number, lookup in central porting database (one for all
operators), operator port prefix put on dialed number, call sent back out
all the way to interconnect, enters new operator network, goes to switch
managing ports, further signalling info added to make call go to the
correct local switch, call goes to correct local switch, dross removed,
call terminated.

Roughly speaking this is the internet equivalent of:
* Configure all interprovider routes by a static routing config loaded
 every week or so.
* Handle porting by getting ICANN to run a box with a primative gated
 BGP feed connected to all your distribution routers. Where a packet
 is delivered to a distribution router and the IP address has changed
 providers, change the next hop received from the ICANN BGP feed
 to a GRE tunnel to the appropriate provider's tunnel termination box.
* At that tunnel termination box, static route all ported-in IP addresses
 to the correct distribution router.

Yum yum.

Sometimes we don't have lessons to learn from the PSTN world, and instead
the reverse is true.

Alex