Proposed change in 6bone pTLA 3FFE usage - 2nd (final?) version

[Bob Fink]

6bone Folk,

I recently proposed changing the pTLA 3FFE:/16 usage to allow future growth as the 6bone becomes used more for production. The current usage specifices an 8-bit pTLA (prefix 3FFE:xx00::/24), thus only providing for 256 pTLAs, of which 57 are currently in use. 

The proposed change was to leave the lower half of the space usage as is (at least for now):

	3FFE:0000::/24 thru 3FFE:7F00::/24  old 8-bit pTLA space

and starting at this point change to a 13-bit pTLA:

	3FFE:8000::/29 thru 3FFE:FFF8::/29  new 13-bit pTLA space

Also, concern had been expressed about the odd bit size of the /29 in terms of implementing the reverse DNS path, so there was the possibility of making the new space fall on an nibble bit size boundary, say a /28 or /32.


Comments generally seem to favor setting the new pTLA space at /28 on the grounds that 2048 pTLAs (half of a 12-bit pTLA space) is big enough, and that it makes the reverse path easier to specify for now. There was also a comment requesting that we don't require 8-bit pTLAs to convert to the newer pTLA space. 


Thus I would like to change the proposal as follows.

The old 8-bit pTLA space will be reduced to use of the lower half of the space:

	3FFE:0000::/24 thru 3FFE:7F00::/24  old 8-bit pTLA space

and starting at this point change to a 12-bit pTLA:

	3FFE:8000::/28 thru 3FFE:FFF0::/28  new 12-bit pTLA space

I would also like to leave existing 8-bit pTLAs in place for the indefinite future. This issue can be reconsidered in the future as usage of the new 12-bit space dictates. 

It should also be noted that there is no planned policy at this time for requiring pTLA holders that acquire a TLA or sub-TLA allocation to renumber out of their pTLA. This issue can also be reconsidered in the future as usage of the new 12-bit space dictates. 


I would like to cease the allocation of /24 8-bit pTLAs at this time, and move to the new /28 space. Hearing no convincing arguments to the contrary, I will assign the next pTLA as a /28. As there are no outstanding pTLA requests in the queue, it makes at least a two week delay in implementing this. Comments to the list please.


Thanks,

Bob