Re: Large ISPs doing NAT?

[mike harrison <meuon () highertech net>]

> On Monday, 2002-04-29 at 08:43 MST, Beckmeyer <beck () pacbell net> wrote:
> > Is anybody here doing NAT for their customers?

Tony Rall: 
> If you're NATing your customers you're no longer an ISP.  You're a
> sort-of-tcp-service-provider (maybe a little udp too).  NAT (PAT even more

Depends on scale and application. We have lots of customers
that we NAT, one way or another. And a lot more that we don't. 
Some customers WANT to 'just see out' and they like all the 'weird stuff
turned off'. Sometimes it's a box at the customers end, sometimes
it's nat'd IP's on the dial-up/ISDN/FracT1/T1/Wireless connection itself. 

Saying we are not an ISP because we do some NAT is a little harsh. 
Giving the customer options and making things work (when done right, 
and explained properly.... we have no sales droids) is good business
and I think good for the 'net. It gives the clueless (and sometimes
cluefull) just a little more isolation. 

What is wrong is NAT'ing when you should not.