RFC 1917 (rfc1917) - Page 1 of 10

An Appeal to the Internet Community to Return Unused IP Networks (Prefixes) to the IANA

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Network Working Group                                       P. Nesser II
Request for Comments: 1917                    Nesser & Nesser Consulting
BCP: 4                                                     February 1996
Category: Best Current Practice


             An Appeal to the Internet Community to Return
               Unused IP Networks (Prefixes) to the IANA

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
   Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   This document is an appeal to the Internet community to return unused
   address space, i.e. any block of consecutive IP prefixes, to the
   Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) or any of the delegated
   registries, for reapportionment.  Similarly an appeal is issued to
   providers to return unused prefixes which fall outside their
   customary address blocks to the IANA for reapportionment.

1. Background

   The Internet of today is a dramatically different network than the
   original designers ever envisioned.  It is the largest public data
   network in the world, and continues to grow at an exponential rate
   which doubles all major operational parameters every nine months.  A
   common metaphor in engineering is that every time a problem increases
   in size by an order of magnitude, it becomes a new problem.  This
   adage has been true over the lifetime of the Internet.

   The Internet is currently faced with two major operational problems
   (amoung others).  The first is the eventual exhaustion of the IPv4
   address space and the second is the ability to route packets between
   the large number of individual networks that make up the Internet.
   The first problem is simply one of supply.  There are only 2^32 IPv4
   addresses available.  The lifetime of that space is proportional to
   the efficiency of its allocation and utilization.  The second problem
   is mainly a capacity problem.  If the number of routes exceeds the
   current capacity of the core Internet routers, some routes will be
   dropped and sections of the Internet will no longer be able to
   communicate with each other.  The two problems are coupled and the
   dominant one has, and will, change over time.





Nesser                   Best Current Practice
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