Slashdot: UK ISP PlusNet Testing Carrier-Grade NAT Instead of IPv6

Sat Jan 19 02:02:07 UTC 2013

On 18 January 2013 14:00, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 4:46 PM, Jean-Francois Mezei
> <jfmezei_nanog at vaxination.ca> wrote:
>> Should NAT become prevalent and prevent innovation because of its
>> limitations, this means that innovation will happen only with IPv6 which
>> means the next "must have" viral applications will require IPv6 and this
>> may spur the move away from an IPv4 that has been crippled by NAT
>> everywhere.
>
> It won't happen and I'll tell you why not.
>
> Client to client communication block diagrams:
>
> Without NAT:
> Client->Router->Router->Router->Router->Router->Client
>
> With NAT:
> Client->Router->Router->Relay->Router->Router->Client
>
> At a high level, the two communication diagrams are virtually identical.
>
> Add killer app. By it's nature, a killer app is something folks will
> pay good money for. This means that 100% of killer apps have
> sufficient funding to install those specialty relays.
>
> Odds of a killer app where one router can't be replaced with a
> specialty relay while maintaining the intended function: not bloody
> likely.
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin

The killer app of the internet is called p2p.

Don't we already have a shortage of IPv4 addresses to start abandoning
p2p, and requiring every service to be server-based, wasting extra
precious IPv4 addresses?

Where's the logic behind this:  make it impossible for two computers
to community directly because we have a shortage of addresses, yet
introduce a third machine with, again, rather limited resources, to
waste another IPv4 address?  Wasting all kinds of extra resources and
adding extra latency?  That's not a killer app, that's the
inefficiency of capitalism.

C.