Re: Fwd: SlashDot: "Comcast Gunning for NAT Users"

[Gregory Urban <urban () cs umbc edu>]

Hmm, isn't this the same industry that charged us additional fees for each 
television in a house that was hooked up to the CableTV service?  Why oh 
why is anyone surprised by this tactic?  Especially from a monopoly.

Let's face it, if the company wants to offer a service, they have the 
option to specify the terms of the service.  If they say the residential 
cable access product is for one computer - that's the service.  If they 
require a purchase of additional IP addresses to allow the user additional 
IP addresses - that's the service.  If they want to offer a business class 
service with as many IP addresses as justifiable using ARIN guidelines - 
that's the service.

You don't like it, don't buy it.  They are under no obligation to give you 
what you want, although it usually does help sales.

Greg U

At 09:57 AM 1/31/2002, Martin J. Levy wrote:


> 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
>
>
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