--- title: Telephone System Is a Bad Example of Hierarchical... description: The common argument that the E.164 telephone numbering plan proves hierarchical addressing could solve BGP table explosion is fundamentally flawed. Telephone... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/telephone-system-is-a-bad-example-of-hierarchical-addresses-ipspace-net-blog-jwa6npqzk twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Telephone System Is a Bad Example of Hierarchical Addresses « ipSpace.net blog | daily.dev og:description: The common argument that the E.164 telephone numbering plan proves hierarchical addressing could solve BGP table explosion is fundamentally flawed. Telephone... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/telephone-system-is-a-bad-example-of-hierarchical-addresses-ipspace-net-blog-jwa6npqzk og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/JWa6NpqZK.png og:image:alt: Telephone System Is a Bad Example of Hierarchical Addresses « ipSpace.net blog og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Telephone System Is a Bad Example of Hierarchical Addresses « ipSpace.net blog **[ipSpace.net Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/ipspace)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The common argument that the E.164 telephone numbering plan proves hierarchical addressing could solve BGP table explosion is fundamentally flawed. Telephone numbers are not location identifiers — they function as names, similar to DNS names, resolved during call setup via directory lookups. Traditional telephony relied on virtual circuits (analogous to MPLS RSVP/TE), not packet forwarding, making the comparison to IP addressing invalid. Modern VoIP further undermines the analogy by simply offloading transport to the IP infrastructure it claims to outperform. The post concludes that hierarchical addressing alone is not a cure for BGP table growth, and that a node-level addressing scheme is the more fundamental requirement. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why is the E.164 telephone numbering plan a bad analogy for hierarchical IP addressing? Telephone numbers are names, not location identifiers — they function like DNS names resolved through directory lookups during call setup, not like IP addresses used for packet forwarding. Traditional telephony used virtual circuits after setup, analogous to MPLS tunnels, not IP routing. Modern VoIP simply offloads transport to IP networks, making the comparison circular and the analogy invalid for solving BGP table explosion. _Network architects debating BGP scaling strategies track arguments like this on daily.dev._ ### Does hierarchical addressing alone solve BGP table explosion? No. Hierarchical addressing alone is insufficient because the BGP table explosion stems from IP addressing only the interface rather than the node, and from BGP's global Internet scope. A two-level, node-level addressing scheme is the more fundamental fix; hierarchical addressing can help further but is optional. The BGP table already showed severe instability at 45,000 routes in 1997, and the problem compounds nonlinearly at scale. _Engineers working through BGP scaling trade-offs find the ongoing debate covered on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [misc/why6why.md at main · becarpenter/misc](https://daily.dev/posts/misc-why6why-md-at-main-becarpenter-misc-vdnnmpiyy) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The world in which IPv6 was a good design](https://daily.dev/posts/the-world-in-which-ipv6-was-a-good-design-tj3i8ov0s) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [IPv8 looked like a real plan to fix the internet, but it was one man, an AI chatbot, and a GoFundMe page](https://daily.dev/posts/ipv8-looked-like-a-real-plan-to-fix-the-internet-but-it-was-one-man-an-ai-chatbot-and-a-gofundme--miefyexin) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Never-Ending IPv6 Loopback Prefix Saga « ipSpace.net blog](https://daily.dev/posts/the-never-ending-ipv6-loopback-prefix-saga-ipspace-net-blog-4nlhgh10l) · ipSpace.net Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#bgp](https://daily.dev/tags/bgp) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/telephone-system-is-a-bad-example-of-hierarchical-addresses-ipspace-net-blog-jwa6npqzk) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Telephone System Is a Bad Example of Hierarchical Addresses « ipSpace.net blog","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/telephone-system-is-a-bad-example-of-hierarchical-addresses-ipspace-net-blog-jwa6npqzk","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/telephone-system-is-a-bad-example-of-hierarchical-addresses-ipspace-net-blog-jwa6npqzk"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:53:10.321Z","dateModified":"2026-08-11T09:06:49.436Z","description":"The common argument that the E.164 telephone numbering plan proves hierarchical addressing could solve BGP table explosion is fundamentally flawed. 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Traditional telephony used virtual circuits after setup, analogous to MPLS tunnels, not IP routing. Modern VoIP simply offloads transport to IP networks, making the comparison circular and the analogy invalid for solving BGP table explosion. Network architects debating BGP scaling strategies track arguments like this on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Does hierarchical addressing alone solve BGP table explosion?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No. Hierarchical addressing alone is insufficient because the BGP table explosion stems from IP addressing only the interface rather than the node, and from BGP's global Internet scope. A two-level, node-level addressing scheme is the more fundamental fix; hierarchical addressing can help further but is optional. The BGP table already showed severe instability at 45,000 routes in 1997, and the problem compounds nonlinearly at scale. 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