- NANOG - lists.nanog.org

Re: Fwd: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"
by Scott Gifford 01 Feb '02

01 Feb '02

William Allen Simpson <wsimpson(a)greendragon.com> writes: > Did anyone actually read the little black booklet that came with the > recent Comcast installation CD? (I did.) [...] > The installation that had to be done sometime during 3 days at the end > of December, despite the broken CD, and bad unneccessary software? [...] > Besides, reports are that Apple Airports won't work with Comcast > anymore.... So, I wouldn't be able to use my laptop. For the record, a friend of mine was switched over to the new Comcast network last week, without Comcast's software (using a free UNIX) and with his Apple Airport working just fine... -----ScottG.

1 0

Procmail Config for the ISP
by Don Cary Grant 01 Feb '02

01 Feb '02

Hello all, We are currently supporting several hundred users and would like to start using some kind of mail filtering tool. We have elected to use Procmail for our mail filtering tool until we have a chance to evaluate the others.. My question is has anyone used Procmail and sendmail together at the mailhost level. If so, would you consider sharing the documentation with us. Procmail documentation is very vague on configuring Procmail and sendmail together and we need help. Any help would be greatly appreciated.. Thanks Don Grant

2 1

RE: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"
by Rowland, Alan D 01 Feb '02

01 Feb '02

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. 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. 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. -Al Just my 2¢, feel free to use your delete key. -----Original Message----- From: Martin J. Levy [mailto:mahtin@mahtin.com] Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 7:58 AM To: nanog(a)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(a)joyofmacs.com> Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 15:00:32 -0500 To: "NetTalk" <nettalk(a)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 -------------------- To unsubscribe <mailto:requests@sustworks.com> with message body "unsubscribe nettalk" ------ End of Forwarded Message

17 19

RE: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"
by JC Dill 01 Feb '02

01 Feb '02

On 02:18 PM 1/31/2002 -0500, Daniel Senie wrote: > >At 01:59 PM 1/31/02, Steven J. Sobol wrote: > >>On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Greg Pendergrass wrote: >> >> > It doesn't make sense that an ISP should complain that customers use >> 100% of >> > what they pay for. >> >>So you think that dialup users should be allowed to stay online 24/7 for >>$20/month on an account advertised as unlimited? > >If not, then the use of the word "unlimited" is more than a bit misleading, >no? Be careful what you market, as people (and the FTC) will be happy to >hold you to your word. So I take it that I get "unlimited" email storage disk space too? And I can send or receive emails of any size? No? Hmmm. I better get the FTC involved. jc jc

1 0

Re: Fwd: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users" (fwd)
by Ukyo Kuonji 01 Feb '02

01 Feb '02

>The question I have is, by the letter of the terms, is running ssh >a 'VPN'? Or if I use a VPN client to connect to my datacenters from home? >Or is >it you 'hosting' a VPN? What about running a VPN over a SSH connection? Would that be considered a VPN? Or maybe we will see cable companies limit you to only surfing. No ports other than 80. _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com

3 2

Truly "unlimited"
by J.D. Falk 01 Feb '02

01 Feb '02

It seems that the only truly unlimited thing on the Internet is the human capacity to constantly rehash old arguments. -- J.D. Falk "Whom can you ask <jdfalk(a)cybernothing.org> what you came to make happen in this world?" -- Rob Brezny, adapted from Pablo Neruda

1 0

RE: NAT Router for other purposes
by Joe Blanchard 31 Jan '02

31 Jan '02

I Totally agree. No reason for an ISP to charge for such things. Reminds me of the days when the phone company used to charge per phone before they were broken up. I have a feeling that in the future, perhaps, it will be a per packet cost. At one place I worked each Dept was charged xxx per Gigabyte of data transfered to and from their respective segments. Maybe this will slide into the home market someday don't know. Cheers -Joe Blanchard > ---------- > From: Cutler, James R[SMTP:james.cutler@eds.com] > Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 2:40 PM > To: nanog(a)merit.edu > Cc: Cutler, James R > Subject: NAT Router for other purposes > > > > > I use a Linksys BEFSR41B to connect both my PC and my Linksys printer > server > together while I am using my Internet connection. This way I can use the > Internet and any of the three printers supported transparently with > nothing > but selecting which printer I want to use. > > And, since I use a company laptop as my PC, the hardware changes often. > The > Linksys insulates these changes from my ISP connection. > > Oh, in addition, I never see DOS attacks against my PC or my printer > server, > since the Linksys does not respond to connection attempts. > > Does this mean that I am an evil person, trying to cheat the ISP? Should > I > be charged $5/month to use my printers which cannot be accessed from the > ISP > connection? > > I think not, and, not. > > - > James R. Cutler, EDS > 800 Tower Drive, Troy, MI 48098 > 248 265 7514 (8-3650 >

1 0

Re: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"
by Ukyo Kuonji 31 Jan '02

31 Jan '02

>The point is that customers don't pay for 100% of the available bandwidth. >Customers couldn't afford to pay for guaranteed 100% BW to all desinations >all the time. Hence, companies determine how much BW a typical user >is likely to use, build to that, and charge the customers based on how >much it cost to provide it. When folks use the service atypically, they are >using resources they didn't pay for. The company I currently work for pays has a contract that causes us to pay around $50 / meg. A typical cable customer (by our traffic to customer count) uses about 5K, on average. If we are paying $50 per meg, should we be charging this customer $.25 a month for Internet transit? Granted, we have power and Juniper routers, and OC48s to pay for, but that also should be very small. I think that the cable companies are more concerned with you stealing IP address space, and possible denying service to another customer because of it. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com

1 0

RE: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"
by W.D.McKinney 31 Jan '02

31 Jan '02

Did you *really* get the gist of my post ? I own a communications company that oversells capacity. I have bought transit for most every employer I have worked for in the past as well, and I have worked for more than one flavour of LEC/ISP. Not a good discussion if you live an a different planet though :-) (Yes Stephen, I have Cisco in it also.) /Dee "Sameer R. Manek" <manek(a)ecst.csuchico.edu> wrote: > What planet have you been employed on? Almost every communications company > oversells capacity, to do otherwise would suggest they are selling the > service at a loss. > > When you buy unlimited dialup, they don't put aside a modem with your > name-tag on it. They let you compete again all the other uses who use that > POP. The ISP knows that only X% of their users will be dialing in at any > given time, so they only have to have capacity for N+1 users. > > When you buy transit from a provider, they almost always have a committed > information rate clause, which is usually significantly less then the > capacity of the line you are buying from them. There is a reason why > dedicated dialup costs more then service that is sold as "unlimited". Your > business model has to account that a some users will use more then you > expected them to, but most will use the expected amount, even though you > sold them more then they needed. > > Even the phone company does this that's why there is a "fast busy" or the > recording of the nice lady who informs you "all circuits are currently > busy". > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: owner-nanog(a)merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of > > W.D.McKinney > > Hmmm, smells like a little of vendor knows more than the customer again. > > I love it when hardware vendors tell service providers how to > > make money/run the business. > > > > /Dee > > > > > > "Stephen Sprunk" <ssprunk(a)cisco.com> wrote: > > > > > > Thus spake "Steven J. Sobol" <sjsobol(a)JustThe.net> > > > > On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Greg Pendergrass wrote: > > > > > It doesn't make sense that an ISP should complain that customers use > > > 100% of > > > > > what they pay for. > > > > > > > > So you think that dialup users should be allowed to stay > > online 24/7 for > > > > $20/month on an account advertised as unlimited? > > > > > > If the ISP sells "unlimited" access, then customers have every > > right to use > > > it without limit. > > > > > > If the ISP places restrictions on what access is allowed and/or > > how long, > > > then it is no longer an unlimited service, and it would be > > fraud to market > > > it as such. > > > > > > ISPs count on customers not using all of what is sold to them; > > if they turn > > > out to be wrong, that is a part of the risk they took. > > > > > > S

1 0

RE: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"
by Borchers, Mark 31 Jan '02

31 Jan '02

> If the ISP sells "unlimited" access, then customers have > every right to use it without limit. Indubitably. But customers are not free to pick and choose among which provisions of the service agreement they want to abide by. If the ISP provides unlimited access but limits the account to a single host, then that is the terms of service. The problem, as has been noted, is enforcement. > If the ISP places restrictions on what access is allowed > and/or how long, > then it is no longer an unlimited service, and it would be > fraud to market > it as such. > > ISPs count on customers not using all of what is sold to > them; if they turn > out to be wrong, that is a part of the risk they took. > > S >

2 1