alt Hacker News36-bit is still too small for the future. We are at 30 billion connected devices. We will probably hit 64 billion in decade or two.
The most likely alternative would have been 64-bit. That's big enough that could have worked for a long time.
36-bit is still too small for the future. We are at 30 billion connected devices. We will probably hit 64 billion in decade or two.
The most likely alternative would have been 64-bit. That's big enough that could have worked for a long time.
A flat address space causes problems tracking it. Think of the IPv4 space which is fragmenting towards having a completely separate route for every /24 (the smallest unit). Longer addresses enable levels of aggregation which is good for routing, hence 128 bits.