On 10/4/12 1:31 AM, Marco Hogewoning wrote:
On Oct 4, 2012, at 12:21 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:
IEEE 802 was expected to provide unique numbers for all computers ever built.
Internet was expected to provide unique numbers for all computers actively on
the network.
Obviously, over time, the latter would be a declining percentage of the former
since the former is increasing and never decrements while the latter could
(theoretically) have a growth rate on either side of zero and certainly has
some decrements even if the increments exceed the decrements.
Which brings the question, are we expected to ever run out of the 48 bits for
mac-addresses? Of course there are exceptions, but in most cases you can
probably start recycling them after a certain period. And that period could
even become shorter over time, I mean what are the chances you find a iPhone 1
in your network these days?
The IEEE/RAC regards the consistent enforcement of these restrictions as a
fundamental and realistic basis for ensuring longevity of the EUI-48
identifier
capability, with a target lifetime of 100 years for existing
applications using EUI-48
identifiers.
http://standards.ieee.org/develop/regauth/tut/eui.pdf
Marco
