>On 6/21/12 7:52 PM, Mark Felder wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 Jun 2012 18:39:24 -0500, Rod Whitworth <glis...@witworx.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> It is not a "school of thought" - it is how it is. I have seen one /126
>>> out in the wild but it is very lonely.
>>
>> I work at an ISP/datacenter. We use /126s for the link net. Handing out
>> /64's "because you can" is stupid in my worthless opinion :-)
>>
>
>They don't do it because they like you or are acting responsibly now,
>but because they need to find a different way to lock you in.
>
>(snip)
>
>But look at the real reason why /126, or /96, or /120 are given in
>Europe a lots specially by France Telecom for example it's not because
>they are so brilliant, but that's their way to lock you in with them and
>not make it easy for you to renumber and if you ever had to do this for
>many computers and multiple subnet, and all, you know what I am talking
>about. No one is looking forward to that and in many cases, company do
>not change ISP because of that simple fact.
Well let me brighten your week-end by putting your French woes in perspective
with Spain's, btw unrelated to any financial crisis. There is no IPv6;
everybody is "working on it" and acting real busy but really has no fucking
clue about IPv6 or 4.
I lost about 5 months' work last Fall because my ISP silently started handing
out "junk" IPv4 addresses from a previously unassigned block. Some routers
(Ciscos and others) had them in a hardcoded blacklist and replied with
counter-measures that'd light up Linux's oh-so-helpful security modules like a
Christmas tree they'd take my whole LAN down, over and again. I spent the
whole time studying the Linux kernel until I switched to OpenBSD. My LAN's
safe now but my connection's still shit.
Despite being Spain's 3rd largest city, Valencia has only two ISPs:
Telefónica, the former state monopoly turned private monopoly, and Ono a
cable operator. When the govt deregulated telecoms they privatised those fat
tax-paid tubes as if they didn't contain 99% air / 1% fiber but water or gas.
When Ono laid its cables it had to get city hall permits to close streets and
dig up pavement.
Every other ISP uses Telefónica's _service_ (not tubes or cables); RJ45 wall
socket, installation receipt and modem are Telefónica's; you just get a
different logo on your bill. The only funny parts are those ISPs' tech support
"rain dance", since they can't do anything about it, and Telefónica's CEO
insulting EU regulators for stifling innovation after paying the yearly fine.
Now Ono is out of cash and put a freeze on any new cabling at any price,
however outrageous ("supply/demand?" Nope). Colt UK's Spanish subsidiary
offered me symmetrical 4 mbps with a 3-year contract for 18'000 Euros... using
Telefónica's rusty cables for the last mile. Before I told them to fuck off
they assured me they'd "turn on the IPv6 box-thingy" by the end of the year,
but if I blew someone they _might_ get me in their VIP beta-test sooner.
So, you don't need customer lock-in when the country's one giant jail.
Bonne fin de semaine,
-- p
