Steve Crocker wrote: > The only way variable length address would have provided a > smooth transition is if there had been room to increase the > length of the address after some years of use.
Bottom up approach to extend address length toward port numbers, thus, worked, is working and will keep working with or without NAT. If necessary, we can have new TCP, UDP and other transport protocols with 32 or 48 bit long port numbers without changing core routers, though it requires minor modifications to transport and application code. Anyway the current 48 bit space of IPv4 addresses and 16 bit port numbers will be suffice for a decade or two. Masataka Ohta _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf