Points on your Internet driver's license (was RE: Even you can be

Sat Jun 12 18:01:34 UTC 2004

> The problem with this is one of who pays for it.

The customer.

> You are talking about an environment where the newcomers and non-experts 
> require significantly more intervention in how things are done and what they 
> can do than the more experienced hands.

I am talking about an environment that applies significant filtering 
before packets are delivered to the customer. NAT, firewall, proxy.... I 
don't think it is all that difficult to do.

> Do you charge the newbies more to cover this level of protection, or do you 
> spread the charges across your entire userbase to avoid impacting one 
> segment?

This protection is a basic service. Opening ports, supplying a real ip 
address, removing the proxy are the add-on items that increase the cost of 
the connection.

> If you raise the prices for newbies then you will automatically have newcomers 
> going for the cheaper, more "raw", service and negating any advantages you 
> have to a tiered product set with protection at the bottom.

Raise the price of the "raw" service. Keeping in mind I am talking about 
broadband connections to homes and small offices, not bandwidth for larger 
organizations that should have an IT department.

> If you spread the charges then the users who require less handholding are 
> going to get upset when their prices are hiked to cover functionality they 
> will never use.

An ISP has a responsibility in regards of the packets transported. I get 
the impression that most ISP's prefer to be "packet movers". Move packets 
from point A to point B without monitoring, intervention or any other 
responsibilities or obligations. This is quite appropriate for an ISP 
serving corporate clients with large pipes, where IP space is assigned 
from the ISP to the client. Once we're talking about providers that server 
homes and small offices this should be different. The ISP holds the IP 
space so it should be held responsible for the packets originating form 
these IPs to some degree.

In other words, if I provide proof that ip w.x.y.z is the source of 
unsolicited email (these days probably because of a compromised host) I 
firmly believe that it is the ISPs responsiblity to either provide contact 
information on who owns this IP and/or manage the traffic to eliminate the 
abuse. I am convinced that the cost of looking after the "raw" clients 
will be much greater then the cost of providing "conditioned" bandwidth.

Adi