Dear RIPE Routing Working Group,

In the run up to the RIPE conference in Prague concerning the issue of IPv6 routing I would like to ask for consideration of a wish to be able to de-aggregate a /32 PA block to a “depth” of 8 bits instead of the proposed 4 bits ( http://www.ripe.net/ripe/maillists/archives/routing-wg/2009/msg00120.html ).

We provide a network for the interconnection of about thirty (30) autonomous government organizations.   For the needs of these organizations we were allocated a /32 PA block by RIPE some years ago.   We are currently developing an address plan.  The idea is that larger organizations (about five) would receive a /37 block, medium sized organizations (about ten) a /38 block and smaller organizations (the rest) a /39 block from the /32 block.   Through the use of the /32 PA block, the benefits of long term IPv6 address stability for routing, server, gateway and firewall systems are being sought.

Every organization is autonomous in terms of its IT infrastructure and in terms of its connection to the Internet.   Each organization has the freedom to choose its own ISP for access to the Internet.  Effectively this means that chosen ISPs would have to propagate the de-aggregated routes (/39, /38 and /37) of our /32 PA route into the internet.   The inter-organizational network (/32) can then be viewed as having up to 30 different connection points (/39, /38 and /37) to the Internet, one for each autonomous organizational unit.

Several statements have been made that routes for /39, /38 and /37 de-aggregated blocks will not be accepted by higher Tier Carriers when lower tier ISPs forward these routes via BGP to the higher tiers of the Internet.   Other statements have been made that routes to blocks which whose prefixes lengths are smaller than or equal to /48 (comparable to of /24 in IPv4 in terms or routing ) will be forwarded and freely accepted.

We wish to ask RIPE what the policy of the Internet Authorities (RIPE and IANA) is regarding the routing of de-aggregated blocks of an IPv6 /32 PA Block.    Can you make a statement regarding this theme?   Can you inform about the policies which higher Tier Carriers will (or must) follow in this regard?

The proposal to allow up to prefix /36 routes de-aggregations (up to a 4 bit depth)  of a /32 block was read with interest, but for our intent does not go far enough.   Why not allow de-aggregation up to an 8 bit depth (to /40 for a /32 PA block)?

John Collins
Eidgenössisches Finanzdepartement
Bundesamt für Informatik und Telekommunikation BIT
Netzplanung und Engineering BPTKE
Monbijoustrasse 74, CH-3003 Bern