end user assignment best practice

[Sander Steffann]

> Hmm, wow this chat is taking an interesting turn ;)
> 
> Thanks for your comments folks.   I guess its still a matter of discussion.  Would it be considered a false sense of entitlement for the ISP to number the provided device in IPv4 using the first IP of the network?

The difference with IPv4 is that it is less common to give 65536 subnets to a customer :-)  When delegating say a /16 (less likely these says...) to a customer I would not put *any* ISP equipment in that block and leave it for the customer to use. When giving a /28 to a customer I might use one of the addresses as the default gateway for the customer (so not use a separate transit network), or I might use a /31 as a transit network. It would depend on the customer. But then: I am a small company with lots of custom configurations. For a larger ISP it would be much more important to have a standardised way of deployment.

> Arguably if in IPv6 the ISP should not use a /64 out of the customer prefix for his edge device, the ISP should also route a second /30 to number his devices and route the IPv4 subnet to customer equipment as well?

IPv4 is more messy than IPv6, usually because the lack of addresses. With IPv6 we have so many addresses that we can build a 'cleaner' network in this regard. But again: it depends on your customers, type of customers, etc.

Cheers,
Sander