On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 12:04:09PM -0400, Matthew Crocker wrote:
Technically no, There is no reason for a customer to have direct access to the net so long as the ISP can provide appropriate proxies for the services required. It gets complex, it gets hard to manage but it can be done. There is a stigma against proxing because of the early days when stale content was all over the place. Does a dynamically assigned dialup/DSL user even need a valid routable IP? For games? Maybe games should be more NAT friendly.
We do remove the filters for customers that have a valid need and show that they have a clue out it all works.
There is a perfectly good reason for direct access: We buy IP connectivity. We don't buy {list of specific applications} connectivity. If I create a new network application, how many ISPs are going to sit there and create a new proxy so it will work? Even on the outside chance that I could talk my own ISP into it since I pay them, it's not going to be a very useful app if one of the prerequisites is "must be a customer of ISP X". -c