[MLB-WIRELESS] Combining 2 internet conenctions.

[Rowan Crowe]

On Mon, 17 May 2004, Tim Hogard wrote:

> >
> > On Mon, 17 May 2004, Tim Hogard wrote:
> >
> > > Of course if the APNIC got its act together and started assigning joint
> > > IP address space, then we could do proper dual homing but I don't
> > > see that ever happening.
> >
> > Last time I checked the *smallest* allocation that APNIC would grant was a
> > /19, which is 8192 IPs. You also need to justify your usage of these IPs
> > with a plan showing how they will be used now, and in the future.
> Thats correct.
> What they should do is tell Telstra that they aren't getting any
> new address space unless they share it.  So then they allocate a
> /19 that is dual routeable to both Telstra and Optus and another
> one that is dual routeable to Telstra and Comendico.  Then when
> you ask Telstra for IP addresses, they ask "Will you be dual homed?"
> and give you address space that is shared with another carrier.

This is an interesting idea, but I don't think it's practical or
commercially viable.

What happens when your local DSL exchange dies? Your Telstra link is dead,
but your Optus link is alive and well. Since Telstra are still advertising
the /19 (including your IP), you've effectively lost access to a large
portion of the net... many sites will still be sending in via Telstra,
which cannot deliver the packets to you.

Also, how do you decide the combination of ISPs which will have this
shared dual address space? Each time you add another one to the list the
number of separate blocks required increases exponentially (2 ISPs = 2
blocks, 3 ISPs = 9 blocks, 4 ISPs = 16 blocks), whilst the percentage of
each individual block that is used will decrease since people have more
choice.  Sounds like a lot of wasted IP space to me. :)

Cheers.

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