In a message written on Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 11:13:51AM -0400, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
As for your first sentence, it is true, I Am Not An Isp. :) However, I do get space from providers, and it is not at all normal for the provider to ask us for money. But then, maybe we are special.
I think the type of service being purchased is the difference. When buying DS-3 and up I've almost never seen providers charge for IP's. A few have a one time fee to provision, but no ongoing monthly. However, in the DSL/Cable Modem/WISP world, and to some degree in the small scale hosting world (think the < $100/month plans) it seems totally common to charge fees for IP's. One static for $10, a /29 for $30, etc. I think the issue with many of the low end plans is you are in a situation where if the customer calls in the support cost exceeds your profit for some number of years, and thus if they call in for static IP's / more IP's you charge them to recover those costs. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/