The routing table grows faster than the internet itself.
Causes of growth:
Deaggregation. Organizations announce more specific prefixes for traffic engineering.
Multihoming. Each multihomed network needs its own prefix.
IPv fragmentation. Address exhaustion forced transfers and subdivisions.
Security practices. Some announce more specifics to defend against hijacks.
Mitigation attempts:
- CIDR helped in the s
- IPv was supposed to encourage aggregation
- Proposals for table limits haven't gained traction