On 25/Aug/20 21:36, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via NANOG wrote:
A few years ago, I was thinking that the cost of the “replacement” of the CPE was too high for most of the operators. Not because the CPE itself, but the logistics or actually replacing it.
Which makes (or made) the case for vCPE. You don't need to truck-roll. All the smarts happen in the data centre.
But since a few years, when you put the cost of CGN + IPv4 addresses (or actually just buying “more” IPv4 addresses and offering dual-stack without CGN – because the CGN will require you to swap the IPv4 pools just because Sony PSN is continuously blacklisting you) versus the lower number of IPv4 addresses needed for 464XLAT and lower number of NAT64 boxes, in most cases, it compensates for the cost of replacing the CPEs, and you have additional marketing advantages that you can sell and even charge for them, such as “Now we give you a box with Gigabit ports, greener for the planet - lower power consumption, better WiFi, better security, ready for the future with IPv6, IPv6 is faster with your social networks, youtube and many websites, etc., etc.)
Agreed. Whether you go vCPE and upgrade all your customers in one go without truck-rolling, or if you actually truck-roll and replace the CPE with those which support CLAT, it makes technical and commercial sense vs. having to deal with IPv4 and CGN's. Mark.