Integration with the billing system is a big one, but remember that not everybody is in control of the DSLAM or whichever device connects to the access network and touches the end user directly. They may instead rely on a wholesale provider for that if they don't have the reach themselves. From: Larry Smith <lesmith@ecsis.net> Sent: Thursday, 23 April 2009 2:07:42 AM To: nanog@nanog.org CC: Subject: Re: Broadband Subscriber Management
On Wed April 22 2009 11:01, Curtis Maurand wrote:
I don't understand why DSL providers don't just administratively down the port the customer is hooked to rather than using PPPoE which costs bandwidth and has huge management overhead when you have to disconnect a customer. I made the same recommendation to the St. Maarten (Dutch) phone company several years ago. They weren't listening either. That way you can rate limit via ATM or by throttling the port administratively.
Most likely because most RADIUS systems can be tied fairly easily directly to the billing/payment system which enables and disables (adds/removes) the customer from radius for payment/non-payment and therefore does not require any "technical" support to turn on/off customers.