Large ISPs doing NAT?

Thu May 2 09:22:40 UTC 2002

At 1:20 AM -0700 5/2/02, Scott Francis wrote:
>On Wed, May 01, 2002 at 04:07:34PM -0700, pmb+nanog at sfgoth.com said:
>>
>> You've got to be kidding. Do you think it's clear to the average consumer
>> buying a GPRS phone what NAT is, and why they might or might not want it?
>
>The average customer buying a "web-enabled" phone doesn't need a
>publicly-routeable IP. I challenge anybody to demonstrate why a cell phone
>needs a public IP. It's a PHONE, not a server.

And what if I want to invent the next big thing? A game, that people play
in real time, with their palm-sized gizmo. What if that game can't be made
scalable unless those devices have real IPs? What if that game is the
catalyst that causes a million more customers to go buy a gizmo from
Cingular?

If providers assume that GPRS devices are all just "web-enabled phones",
then that's all they will _ever_ be, and no one will care, and no one will
buy them. If all I want is a PHONE, not a server, I can buy that today (and
Cingular doesn't have to spend millions to deply a whole new backend.)

IMHO, the attitude of "we already know what services you want" is at odds
with the intent of the Internet, and exactly the BS that Telcos have been
feeding customers for years.

I have yet to see any good argument for why mobile-IP providers should use
NAT instead of routable space. And no, "because they might get rooted" is
not a good reason. That's the responsibility of the device designers, NOT
THE NETWORK.

-pmb