Re: How many IP addresses do we actually need?
“ Because it's the smallest power of two that's bigger than 64.”
Complete nonsense.
The reason addresses are 32, 64, 128 bits is because of processing efficiency.
If CPU’s back then where 20 bit, the ipv4 address space would likely had been 40bit.
Back when ipv4 was created 32 bits was exactly 2 16 bit cpu cycles. Any scheme that used bit values not an exact multiple of the cpu would be inefficient.
64 bits was 4 x 16 bit cycles, 2 x 32 bit or 1 x current 64 bit.
One reason why you can’t just add an octet or 2 is you’ll be wasting cpu cycles and may as well consume the full compute space or multiple off. Cheap compute (Think domestic broadband routers given away to subscribers) running as efficiently as possible powered the early internet and ensured its success. The less cycles required to process a packet, the quicker it goes on it’s way, the faster the service etc etc.
Early computing and networking was built on efficiency. Today we rely on excess.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
