RE: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"
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@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@joyofmacs.com> Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 15:00:32 -0500 To: "NetTalk" <nettalk@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
On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 09:47:46AM -0800, Rowland, Alan D wrote:
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.
I would debate the 'most' part of this, especially on the cable broadband side of things. I've worked for two cable providers now, and neither had a real option for multiple computers. On top of that, I've had three other cable accounts; one was strictly one-IP-only, the other two were two IPs. Neither had any provision for more. The household I am in now has three computers... What choice do I have other than NAT? I would gladly pay another $5/mo for IPs. But that isn't an option. Get xDSL? Not an option where I am. In short, don't say 'most' as a rule when it is more likely 'Most in my area', or even more likely, 'Some'.
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.
IIRC, this has been and gone. i am pretty sure @Home had a lawsuit or three based on just that, and replied with exactly that response. Conversely, as more and more ISPs advertise 'Work from home' accounts, but only offer one kind of broadband account, then they DO leave themselves open to this.
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.
This is a definite fact, yes. What isn't clear is how people running NAT either use significantly more bandwidth, let alone '50%+'. And frankly, if I buy a connection, I use it. It is not MY job to make sure you have enough bandwidth on your backbone. If I get a T1, and use a T1, there is no accusation of abuse. If I get a 1.5Mb DSL or 512k cable connection and use those speeds... How is that abuse? All the equipment currently out here allows rate limiting. Use it. Jamie
-Al Just my 2¢, feel free to use your delete key.
It doesn't make sense that an ISP should complain that customers use 100% of what they pay for. So if 1% of your customers use %50+ of your bandwidth, your 1% is getting their money's worth. If you don't want the customer to use it, don't sell it to them. I would suggest to Cable and DSL companies that charging an extra $70 a month is going to do nothing except make them loose customers and gain a bad reputation. Instead I would suggest to them to check the location of NAT users: if the customer is in a residential building then they would likely loose them by charging them $70 more a month, but if they are in a commercial building they could probably make them pay up. Greg -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Rowland, Alan D Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 12:48 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users" 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@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@joyofmacs.com> Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 15:00:32 -0500 To: "NetTalk" <nettalk@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
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? -- JustThe.net LLC - Steve "Web Dude" Sobol, CTO ICQ: 56972932/WebDude216 website: http://JustThe.net email: sjsobol@JustThe.net phone: 216.619.2NET postal: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor On The Lake, OH 44060-2752 DalNet: ZX-2
On Thu, Jan 31, 2002 at 01:59:06PM -0500, sjsobol@JustThe.net said:
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?
perhaps the advertising language needs to be overhauled. Obviously, a dialup user running services pulling max bandwidth 24/7 on an entry-level account is a problem. However, to play devil's (customer's?) advocate, it _is_ advertised as 'umlimited access' ... It seems kind of, well, silly to advertise a service in certain language, and then to complain when somebody takes you literally. Perhaps I'm just not seeing this from the business perspective. :) -- Scott Francis darkuncle@ [home:] d a r k u n c l e . n e t Systems/Network Manager sfrancis@ [work:] t o n o s . c o m GPG public key 0xCB33CCA7 illum oportet crescere me autem minui
Well, if you offer "unlimited" access then, yes, they should be allowed to stay on 24x7 if they want to. Look up "unlimited" in your Funk & Wagnalls - my Websters says it means "infinite, boundless, without restriction." That's why ShaysNet only offers "unmetered occasional" access. I suppose it would be asking too much for the FTC to investigate the possibility of consumer fraud in offerings of "unlimited" access. David Leonard ShaysNet On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, 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?
-- JustThe.net LLC - Steve "Web Dude" Sobol, CTO ICQ: 56972932/WebDude216 website: http://JustThe.net email: sjsobol@JustThe.net phone: 216.619.2NET postal: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor On The Lake, OH 44060-2752 DalNet: ZX-2
Absolutely. If one goes to an all-you-can-eat buffet and has 4 plates of food, can the restaurant complain to them? Of course not, unless they have a definition of unlimited I don't know of. If you advertise unlimited access to a customer then they can use it as much as they want to, by definition. Greg -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Steven J. Sobol Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 1:59 PM To: Greg Pendergrass Cc: Rowland, Alan D; nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users" 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? -- JustThe.net LLC - Steve "Web Dude" Sobol, CTO ICQ: 56972932/WebDude216 website: http://JustThe.net email: sjsobol@JustThe.net phone: 216.619.2NET postal: 5686 Davis Drive, Mentor On The Lake, OH 44060-2752 DalNet: ZX-2
Thus spake "Steven J. Sobol" <sjsobol@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
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@cisco.com> wrote:
Thus spake "Steven J. Sobol" <sjsobol@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
[snip]
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.
I remember back in college when I was the customer of an upstart ISP I received a nasty-gram that explained to me the difference between the term "unlimited" and "dedicated" (which stills sounds like marketing spin). This was back in the day when racks of USR couriers were the norm. Their argument was they didn't want someone tying up a modem and a line 24/7. They wanted me to upgrade my $36.95/mo "unlimited" account to a ~$300/mo account plus pay a one-time setup fee that was exactly the street price of a USR courier. Bottom line = "read the fine print". Oftentimes, it's not what makes sense to normal humans, just lawyers. ;-> -T.
On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Tim Irwin wrote:
[snip]
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.
I remember back in college when I was the customer of an upstart ISP I received a nasty-gram that explained to me the difference between the term "unlimited" and "dedicated" (which stills sounds like marketing spin). This was back in the day when racks of USR couriers were the norm. Their argument was they didn't want someone tying up a modem and a line 24/7. They wanted me to upgrade my $36.95/mo "unlimited" account to a ~$300/mo account plus pay a one-time setup fee that was exactly the street price of a USR courier.
Just out of curiosity, was this an ISP in Ithaca, NY or nearby? (The description seems to match someone we've done business with there) Vivien -- Vivien M. vivienm@dyndns.org Assistant System Administrator Dynamic DNS Network Services http://www.dyndns.org/
On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Vivien M. wrote:
Just out of curiosity, was this an ISP in Ithaca, NY or nearby? (The description seems to match someone we've done business with there)
Vivien
Oh, it's not limited to a single ISP. It never was. I fail to see why people are arguing about "unlimited" as a marketing term. The fact is that all providers will use vague language to attract customers and then redefine those terms in their TOS and contracts. It's the nature of business. What needs to be addressed is the product itself. In this case, the cable internet service is what Comcast or any other cable provider defines it to be. If they wish to limit their product to exclude NAT/firewalls/multiple computers/etc, that's their decision. They need to, however, make that policy known. I wholeheartedly disagree with the practice of some ISPs (including cable companies) to target "power-users" who don't fit the traditional, undisclosed mold and drop them. The ISP business is about figuring out what your average customer will use, budgeting a little extra, and hoping they don't use more. If they do, you MUST increase capacity to support them. If this means taking on additional costs and passing these costs off to customer, so be it. Unfortunately, without competition in the cable market, unfair business practices will continue. And without other high-speed options open to many, they will have no choice but to buy cable internet access and conform to the rules, both written and unwritten. -Mike /-----------------------+-----------------------\ | Mike Joseph | Netaxs, Inc. | | Network Engineering | ~~~~~~~~~~~~ | | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | (610)825-9800 | | mjoseph@netaxs.com | www.netaxs.com | \-----------------------+-----------------------/
On Fri, 1 Feb 2002, Mike Joseph wrote:
On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Vivien M. wrote:
Just out of curiosity, was this an ISP in Ithaca, NY or nearby? (The description seems to match someone we've done business with there)
Vivien
Oh, it's not limited to a single ISP. It never was. I fail to see why
I know; my apologies to the list. I was trying to send the reply privately (the logic that Tim was quoting just happened to sound much like the emails the ISP I have in mind sends to its customers, which are very informative and everything, but also very blunt and honest...), but unfortunately due to either Teleglobe or Exodus screwing up something, I couldn't talk to our servers directly, so I was using a different mail client to send that email, and I obviously wasn't familiar with how that client handles reply vs reply all. (Why did I let myself get assimilated to MS software! Now I can't seem to use anything else properly...) Once again, sorry about that... (and now Teleglobe or Exodus fixed the problem, so I can go back to my regularly-buggy MS mail client) Vivien -- Vivien M. vivienm@dyndns.org Assistant System Administrator Dynamic DNS Network Services http://www.dyndns.org/
On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, 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 it says "unlimited" absolutely. That's what unlimited means. The ISPs I've worked for have never used the term, and enough providers have been burnt by this that the majority seem to have stopped using the term "unlimited." The others attempt to redefine the word in ther TOS, which is B.S. but that's really between the consumer and their provider. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ Patrick Greenwell Stealthgeeks,LLC. Operations Consulting http://www.stealthgeeks.net \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
In the immortal words of Steven J. Sobol (sjsobol@JustThe.net):
So you think that dialup users should be allowed to stay online 24/7 for $20/month on an account advertised as unlimited?
The Federal Trade Commission (and possibly your local district attorney) will certainly think so, unless your service contracts contain a novel redefinition of the word "unlimited." (This is, I suspect, why most of them do just that.) -n ------------------------------------------------------------<memory@blank.org> When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. <http://blank.org/memory/>----------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Jan 31, 2002, Nathan J. Mehl wrote:
In the immortal words of Steven J. Sobol (sjsobol@JustThe.net):
So you think that dialup users should be allowed to stay online 24/7 for $20/month on an account advertised as unlimited?
The Federal Trade Commission (and possibly your local district attorney) will certainly think so, unless your service contracts contain a novel redefinition of the word "unlimited."
(This is, I suspect, why most of them do just that.)
We have the same problem out here in Australia with ISPs selling "unlimited" accounts, but they really aren't unlimited in the truest sense of the word. The cutest idea I ever saw (and I'm not sure how well this'd scale on a cable network, but ..) was adaptive bandwidth limiting. One ISP tried bandwidth limiting each dialup customer based on how much bandwidth they had used over a calendar month. If you fell inside that top 1% which used 50% of the network resources, you soon ended up getting a trickle of traffic. Local traffic (for example, gaming, or local IX traffic) wasn't affected by this pipe. Personally, I think that would be wonderful for Residential Cable/DSL services - there's only going to be a (relatively) small number of your userbase that will ever be affected by the bandwidth limiting, and you're still providing "unlimited" connectivity to whatever you deem as "local" .. Adrian -- Adrian Chadd "The first rule of optimisation: <adrian@creative.net.au> Don't do it, and at least don't do it yet." -- Stefan Axelsson
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 09:18:31 +0800 From: Adrian Chadd <adrian@creative.net.au>
Personally, I think that would be wonderful for Residential Cable/DSL services - there's only going to be a (relatively) small number of your userbase that will ever be affected by the bandwidth limiting, and you're still providing "unlimited" connectivity to whatever you deem as "local" ..
That's something I'd also thought of. Ratelimiting with logarithmic aging and a long half-life... it would be more gentle than a cap that kicks in after, say, 30 seconds. Eddy Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - EverQuick Internet Division Phone: +1 (316) 794-8922 Wichita/(Inter)national Phone: +1 (785) 865-5885 Lawrence -- Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 11:23:58 +0000 (GMT) From: A Trap <blacklist@brics.com> To: blacklist@brics.com Subject: Please ignore this portion of my mail signature. These last few lines are a trap for address-harvesting spambots. Do NOT send mail to <blacklist@brics.com>, or you are likely to be blocked.
In the referenced message, Greg Pendergrass said:
It doesn't make sense that an ISP should complain that customers use 100% of what they pay for. So if 1% of your customers use %50+ of your bandwidth, your 1% is getting their money's worth. If you don't want the customer to use it, don't sell it to them.
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. If you think otherwise, build a company that doesn't aggregate flows, and gives every customer (simultaneous) guaranteed MAX BW 24x7 to every destination within their network and at least the first-hop into non-customer networks.
Thus spake "Stephen Griffin" <stephen.griffin@rcn.com>
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.
Customers are paying for whatever service you have sold them, period. If you sell them 'unlimited service', you must deliver them 'unlimited service' or face fraud, false advertising, breach of contract, etc.
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.
No, they're using resources they paid for but you assumed they'd not use. If you can't tell the difference, ask your lawyer.
If you think otherwise, build a company that doesn't aggregate flows, and gives every customer (simultaneous) guaranteed MAX BW 24x7 to every destination within their network and at least the first-hop into non-customer networks.
No, you state in the Terms of Service exactly what you intend to deliver. If you can't provide unlimited service, don't offer it. If you intend to provide a "reasonable attempt to deliver all acceptable traffic," or something similar, that's a totally different matter. S
In the referenced message, Greg Pendergrass said:
It doesn't make sense that an ISP should complain that customers use 100%
of
what they pay for. So if 1% of your customers use %50+ of your bandwidth, your 1% is getting their money's worth. If you don't want the customer to use it, don't sell it to them.
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. If you think otherwise, build a company that doesn't aggregate flows, and gives every customer (simultaneous) guaranteed MAX BW 24x7 to every destination within their network and at least the first-hop into non-customer networks. --- This is a pricing question, as aggregation always is. If a provider discloses whatever amount the network has been arbitrarily built/designed/costed out to perform at, and then charges disclosed rates for usage above that, everyone can be happy. The problem is that providers that want to charge for atypical usage never want to tell anyone where their thresholds are. Deepak Jain AiNET
participants (17)
-
Adrian Chadd -
Deepak Jain -
E.B. Dreger -
Greg Pendergrass -
Jamie Norwood -
M. David Leonard -
Mike Joseph -
Nathan J. Mehl -
Patrick -
Rowland, Alan D -
Scott Francis -
Stephen Griffin -
Stephen Sprunk -
Steven J. Sobol -
Tim Irwin -
Vivien M. -
W.D.McKinney