Fwd: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"

Thu Jan 31 18:24:34 UTC 2002

Rowland, Alan  D" <alan_r1 at corp.earthlink.net> said:

> 
> I've seen a lot of good responses since this post but none that points out
> the obvious, most broadband providers offer 'residential' and 'business'
> products. The former at ~$50/month for a 'single connection,'the latter for
> ~$120/month including most of the services at issue in this thread. You get
> what you pay for.

Yes this is true.  However, you have some Broadband ISPs (RR, Speakeasy) 
that will offer additonal ips for an extra fee without having to pay for 
business access.

Many broadband ISPs also do not offer business access to residential areas.  
Everytime I've asked one, they couldn't give me a good reason why.

> 
> Some day case law will catch up to this new media enough that when a
> 'residential' service customer seeks remedy for $X,000 in 'lost business'
> the defense will be that if they want a 'business' connection, then that is
> what they should have signed up for/been paying for.

Exactally.  However, that's why you have a "Service Level Agreement."  Can't 
really win a lawsuit that easily without on, one either side.

I don't know if many broadband providers offer a SLA for business 
connections as well, unless its something more economical to provide a SLA 
for, such as a T-1.

I do know when I signed up for a business cable modem once, it said in fine 
print on the contract "You will not hold RoadRunner responsible for down 
time due to network issues, etc."  I'm pretty sure most broadband providers 
stick a clause like that into the contract.

> 
> When 1% of your users are sucking down %50+ of your bandwidth you may need
> to discuss AUPs with that 1%. Don't expect your shareholders to cut you any
> slack on this issue.
>

How could 1% of your users suck down %50+ of bandwidth in such a scenario?  
Even though they are running NAT, they only have one address, one MAC 
address from the cable modem, and one system doing the rate limiting off of 
that ip/mac address.

When someone's running NAT, the bandwidth is distributed between the users 
behind the NAT device.

If someone's assigned 512K, they can only use up to 512K, be it one 
computer, or several behind a NAT device.

--conradr

> -Al
> 
> Just my 2¢, feel free to use your delete key.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin J. Levy [mailto:mahtin at mahtin.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 7:58 AM
> To: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Fwd: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I got this forwarded to me.  I'm not impressed.
> 
> Based upon the general desire for providers to have NAT'ed users and to
> reduce IP-space usage where appropriate, does this make sense?  I can
> understand the providers desire to increase revenue, but I don't believe
> this is a good way to do it.
> 
> Besides the technical difficulties of detecting a household that is running
> a NAT'ed router, why not win over the customer with a low-cost extra IP
> address vs: the customers one-time hardware cost for the router.  There are
> people who would be willing to pay some amount monthly vs: (let's say) $100
> for a NAT box.
> 
> Does anyone know what percentage of home broadband users run NAT?  Does
> anyone have stats for IP-addresses saved by using NAT?
> 
> Martin
> 
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Ward Clark <ward at joyofmacs.com>
> Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 15:00:32 -0500
> To: "NetTalk" <nettalk at sustworks.com>
> Subject: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"
> 
> Today's MacInTouch links to a report that appeared in SlashDot on 
> Thursday:
> 
> "A co-worker of mine resigned today. His new job at Comcast: Hunting down 
> 'abusers' of the service. More specifically, anyone using NAT to connect 
> more than one computer to their cable modem to get Internet access- 
> whether or not you're running servers or violating any other Acceptable 
> Use Policies. Comcast has an entire department dedicated to eradicating 
> NAT users from their network. ... did anyone think they'd already be 
> harassing people that are using nothing more than the bandwidth for which 
> they are paying? ..." Earthlink and Comcast have both been advertising 
> lately their single-household, multi-computer services (and additional 
> fees) -- probably amusing to many thousands of broadband-router owners, 
> at least until the cable companies really crack down.
> 
> There's a huge number of responses (691 at the moment), which I quickly 
> scanned out of curiosity.  I'm not a Comcast or Earthlink user.
> 
> You can start here:
> 
>      http://slashdot.org/articles/02/01/24/1957236.shtml
> 
> -- ward
> 
> 
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