Re: [irtf-discuss] Why do we need to go with 128 bits address space ?

[John Wroclawski <[e-mail]>]

> On Aug 21, 2019, at 4:38 PM, Fred Baker <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> That said, we don't operate on the end2end principle in the Internet, in the sense of the application determining the route its packets will take to a destination. Applications know the addresses they might send packets to, but they have no idea by what path said packets might be routed

This is certainly true today, of course, but it's not impossible to think about alternatives. As an example, one that tried to work this through thoughtfully a while ago was Xiaowei Yang’s NIRA:

“In today’s Internet, users can pick their own ISPs, but once the packets have entered the network, the users have no control over the overall routes their packets take. NIRA aims at providing end users the ability to choose the sequence of Internet service providers a packet traverses. User choice fosters competition, which imposes an economic discipline on the market, and fosters innovation and the introduction of new services.

https://groups.csail.mit.edu/ana/Publications/XiaoweiYang-NIRA.pdf (longer PhD-level document available as well, from Xiaowei)

That said, this is one of those “tussle” spaces where the end users and the different ISPs involved each have their own interests, which may not completely align. Which is what makes the problem interesting..

cheers, -john