The IPAE Working Group seeks to develop a capability for extending IP to 
support larger addresses, while minimizing impact on the installed base of IP 
users.  An enhancement to the current system is mandatory due to the 
limitations of the current 32-bit IP addresses.  IPAE seeks to upgrade the 
current system, rather than to replace the Internet Protocol.  The approach 
taken will be to sandwich a small addressing layer, above IP but below TCP 
or UDP, with the new layer having its own IP Protocol-ID.  This special layer 
will thereby encapsulate new, larger, globally-unique addresses for the source
and destination, as well as any other fields of information that are 
considered essential.

The specificaton effort will attend to issues of transition and coexistance, 
among unmodified ``IP'' hosts and hosts which support ``IPAE'' hosts. The 
IPAE approach will develop a framework to organize the Internet into areas 
called ``IP Addressing Commonwealths'' within which 32-bit IP addresses are 
unique and are part of a larger, globally-unique Internet addressing scheme.  
It is a goal of this effort to avoid requiring any router within a 
Commonwealth to be modified, but any host wishing full Internet connectivity 
will need to support IPAE eventually.  Further, any system wishing to support 
full IPAE addresses will need to be modified, including network management 
software.