Maybe we need to help make it easy to GET assignments of blocks of addresses
for individuals/small businesses/etc. Part of the problem is the obvious:
IPv4 addresses are running short. Part is the "K-Mart" level of product
understanding I've experienced with many vendors of Internet connectivity.
When I asked a cable IP vendor about getting a static address assignment,
the (sales) person said, "Oh, there's no static, it's the Internet." <sigh>
That's a priceless quote, but frankly dial-up vendors weren't any better.
The first is an engineering problem, and we're working on that one (IPv6),
right? :-) The second is a market problem, and I don't think it's going to
go away until either telcos realize that they need to make a commitment to
being in the IP business (and train their staff), or we have meaningful
alternatives to the telcos for individual connectivity.
>From the individual user's perspective, NAT does seem a lot easier. You
hook computer A to the ISP, computers B and C to computer A, and everyone
can surf -- cool. I AM a networking geek, and NAT was a lot easier (and
cheaper) than the alternatives. I suspect it will remain so for at least a
while -- Ian
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Moore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2000 8:44 PM
> To: Dick St.Peters
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: draft-ietf-nat-protocol-complications-02.txt
>
>
> > Most users are not
> > networking geeks. They like NAT because NAT boxes make
> what they want
> > to do so easy.
>
> presumably they don't realize that the NATs are making it hard
> to do other things that they might want to do.
>
> I wonder...how many of these folks really want network address
> translation, versus those who just want the other things that
> NAT boxes often do? (DHCP, firewall, hub, router, all with
> really easy setup)
>
> maybe we need to make it as easy to connect a small net to the
> Internet, as it is to connect a host.
>
> Keith
>
