RFC 1380 (rfc1380) - Page 2 of 22

IESG Deliberations on Routing and Addressing

RFC 1380                          ROAD                     November 1992


   4. SETTING DIRECTIONS FOR THE IETF............................... 10
   4.1 The Need For Interim Solutions............................... 10
   4.2 The Proposed Phases.......................................... 10
   4.3 A Solution For Routing Table Explosion -- CIDR............... 12
   4.4 Regarding "IP Address Exhaustion"............................ 13
   4.5 Milestones And Timetable For Making a Recommendation for
       "Bigger Internet Addresses".................................. 14
   5. SUMMARY....................................................... 15
   Appendix A. FOR MORE INFORMATION................................. 16
   Appendix B. INFORMATION AND SELECTION CRITERIA FOR "BIGGER
               INTERNET ADDRESSES".................................. 16
   Appendix C. BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................... 20
   Security Considerations.......................................... 21
   Authors' Addresses............................................... 22

1. INTRODUCTION

   It seems unlikely that the designers of IP ever imagined at the time
   what phenomenal success the Internet would achieve.  Internet
   connections were initially intended primarily for mainframe computers
   at sites performing DARPA-sponsored research.  Now, of course, the
   Internet has extended its reach to the desktop and is beginning to
   extend into the home.  No longer the exclusive purview of pure R&D
   establishments, the Internet has become well entrenched in parts of
   the corporate world and is beginning to make inroads into secondary
   and even primary schools.  While once it was an almost exclusively
   U.S. phenomenon, the Internet now extends to every continent and
   within a few years may well include network connections in every
   country.

   Over the past couple of years, we have seen increasingly strong
   indications that all of this success will stress the limits of IP
   unless appropriate corrective actions are taken.  The supply of
   unallocated Class B network numbers is rapidly dwindling, and the
   amount of routing information now carried in the Internet is
   increasingly taxing the abilities of both the routers and the people
   who have to manage them.  Somewhat longer-term, it is possible that
   we will run out of host addresses or network numbers altogether.

   While these problems could be avoided by attempting to restrict the
   growth of the Internet, most people would prefer solutions that allow
   growth to continue.  Fortunately, it appears that such solutions are
   possible, and that, in fact, our biggest problem is having too many
   possible solutions rather than too few.

   This memo provides a preliminary report of IESG deliberations on how
   routing and addressing issues can be pursued in the IAB/IETF.




Gross & Almquist