Is multihoming hard? [was: DNS amplification]

Wed Mar 20 20:20:23 UTC 2013

Sent from my iPad

On Mar 20, 2013, at 10:18 AM, "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick at ianai.net> wrote:

> On Mar 20, 2013, at 09:25 , Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> 
>>> I don't know a single ISP that wants to throttle growth by not accepting additional customers, BGP speaking or not. (I do know several that want to throttle growth through not upgrading their links because they have a captive audience they are trying to ransom. But that is neither relevant to this discussion, not controversial - unless you are paid by one of those ISPs….)
>> 
>> Comcast
>> Verizon
>> AT&T
>> Time Warner Cable
>> Cox
>> CenturyLink
>> 
>> to name a few.
>> 
>> Not one of them will run BGP with a residential subscriber.
> 
> Who cares? [See below.]
> 
Not one of them will run BGP with a commercial subscriber using a cost-effective edge technology.

> 
>>> And please don't reply with "then why can't I run BGP on my [cable|DSL|etc.] link?" Broadband providers are not trying to throttle growth by not allowing grandma to do BGP, and swapping to LISP or anything else won't change that.
>> 
>> Sure they are. If they weren't, it would be relatively straight forward to add the necessary options to DHCP for a minimal (accept default, advertise local) BGP configuration and it would be quite simple for CPE router manufacturers to incorporate those capabilities.
>> 
>> The problem is BGP doesn't scale to that level and everyone knows it, so, we limit growth by not allowing it to be a possibility.
> 
> This is patently false. No network has a decision matrix that is "BGP doesn't scale, so let's refuse money from customers".
> 

In so many words, no, but it is the net effect when you distill down the other contents of the matrix.

> Every single one of the companies you listed will run BGP with customers. You limited this to "residential subscriber". Companies do not have only "residential customers". Pay more, get more. Pay $40, get less. Shocker.

I pay $99/month to Comcast and they won't even give me a static address. That's a "business class" service from them.

OTOH, I have two ISPs that do BGP with me for free.

> "Not if you don't pay for it" is not a valid argument against "every $COMPANY has $FEATURE".
> 
> I said the barrier to entry for multihoming was lower than it has ever been. I didn't say it was zero.

The barrier is lower, but it's still higher than it should be.

> You are a pretty smart guy, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just kinda-sortta forgot or did not consider the whole "money" thing, despite the fact the only reason nearly every Internet entity exists. (Now I wonder how many people are going to tell me about the N% which are non-profits, despite the fact I said "nearly"?)

I'm paying way more per month to the providers that refuse to do BGP with/for me than I am paying to the providers that ARE doing BGP with/for me. Clearly money is not the issue.

Owen