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> We continue to apply the economics of abundance to IPv6 address markets. I'm an ordinary retail customer of my ISP, which is IP6-enabled. So they allocated m

> We continue to apply the economics of abundance to IPv6 address markets. I'm an ordinary retail customer of my ISP, which is IP6-enabled. So they allocated me a /56 prefix. That certainly looks to me like "the economics of abundance". Even if every device, appliance, light-fitting and even door in my home had its own global IP address, I'd never use more than a tiny part of that allocation.

ithkuil 5y ago
There are 2^24 times more /56 networks than entire ipv4 address spaces.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Point taken. Still, it's the "economics of abundance" to automatically dole out huge amounts of address space to someone who can't demonstrate the need for more than a few dozen addresses.
  - mgbmtl 5y ago
    A /56 is a good fit for a residential ISP. Initially some ISPs gave out a /48. A /56 gives you 256 subnets. A /60 only 16. I'm happy they are erring on the side of potential innovation. ISPs have no idea how IPv6 will be used. A few years back, I was running a ton of various services from home, various APs, community mesh network, services over VPN. It worked well on a /56. (Thank you Teksavvy)
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      If You're running multiple APs (with IP6 over wifi) and a community mesh, you have a demonstrable need for space. I have a single AP and a few strands of CAT5. Can you even run IP6 over wifi? I've never looked into it. It's never crossed my mind to try to use any public IP address on a wifi network.
      - vlovich123 5y ago
        IP and MAC are separate layers. So yes, ipv6 works fine over 802.11 as long as your router supports ipv6 (I think by now all home routers probably do)
        MayeulC 5y ago
        The wi-fi access point doesn't even need to be IPv6-aware, I'm pretty sure. Most can be set to a "bridge" mode that should work fine (note that I did not test this personally). But even cheap wireless routers I bought 10 years ago support IPv6, and I doubt you really want to use that on a modern Wi-Fi network.
    - wmf 5y ago
      /56 leaves room for them to upsell /48 on the "pro" or "business" tier. ;-)

ithkuil 5y ago

There are 2^24 times more /56 networks than entire ipv4 address spaces.

denton-scratch 5y ago
Point taken. Still, it's the "economics of abundance" to automatically dole out huge amounts of address space to someone who can't demonstrate the need for more than a few dozen addresses.
- mgbmtl 5y ago
  A /56 is a good fit for a residential ISP. Initially some ISPs gave out a /48. A /56 gives you 256 subnets. A /60 only 16. I'm happy they are erring on the side of potential innovation. ISPs have no idea how IPv6 will be used. A few years back, I was running a ton of various services from home, various APs, community mesh network, services over VPN. It worked well on a /56. (Thank you Teksavvy)
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    If You're running multiple APs (with IP6 over wifi) and a community mesh, you have a demonstrable need for space. I have a single AP and a few strands of CAT5. Can you even run IP6 over wifi? I've never looked into it. It's never crossed my mind to try to use any public IP address on a wifi network.
    - vlovich123 5y ago
      IP and MAC are separate layers. So yes, ipv6 works fine over 802.11 as long as your router supports ipv6 (I think by now all home routers probably do)
      - MayeulC 5y ago
        The wi-fi access point doesn't even need to be IPv6-aware, I'm pretty sure. Most can be set to a "bridge" mode that should work fine (note that I did not test this personally). But even cheap wireless routers I bought 10 years ago support IPv6, and I doubt you really want to use that on a modern Wi-Fi network.
  - wmf 5y ago
    /56 leaves room for them to upsell /48 on the "pro" or "business" tier. ;-)