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Motorola Introduces Home Cable Modem/Router
Anonymous Coward writes: "Check this out! Motorola has a cable modem that also supports Ethernet, USB AND HomePNA! The modem doubles as a NAT, firewall and dhcp server -- Awesome!" Cable modems aren't new, but it seems that both service providers and manufacturers are finally catching the idea that TOS agreements are not about to head off the wave of home networking. Products like this will make the idea of households paying per-connection fees even more laughable.
Hopefully motorola will ship these with
no system-wide default (or easily guessable)
passwords, and with spoofing protection outbound.
The trend toward faster and faster network
connections sold as "appliances" puts a lot more
responsibility on the manufacturer to make sure
default configurations are suitable for users,
and won't contribute to DDoS, etc.
If service vender provide NAT/Firewall box with service as an integrated portion of DSL/Cable connection box, they can block connection to some port claiming to protect consumer by preconfiguring these box.
Result will be no server function accesible from outside. No more personal web server, ssh into your home machine, etc.
I would rather my Linux do those functions in my way.
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They also make you say you won't hook up a second TV without paying for it in those terms-of-service agreements. That's insane. They're providing a signal. I say what you do with that signal is your business as long as you don't sell or share it with a household that isn't paying for it. Would they have me pay extra if a friend of mine comes over to watch TV? He's not paying for it, but he's watching it.
There's some more money to be made! Don't worry about pissing off your customers. Just shake 'em down for some more dough.
Same thing with internet access. You're paying for a pipeline through which you can move data. You only get so much bandwidth. Whose business is it what you do with that bandwidth; whether one machine uses it, or if its split between two, or three, or fifty machines.
If the cable companies had any kind of sense at all, they would be trying to cater to our needs as much as possible. High-bandwidth access is going to be a very, very, very big business, and they should try to garner a loyal following, rather than annoying and extorting customers.
I'm the engineer who wrote the HPNA
driver for this box. The way it work is... the
user is not expected to do anything to configure
it. Configuration is done by the cable operator
through SNMP.
This is quite a cool product, if I do say so myself.
The NAT and DHCP can be turned off, if necessary, so that the cable company can sell
stuff as an add-on if they so choose.
The advantage of this hub is that it does away
with the necessity to string a coax cable from
the cable modem (which usually sits near the TV
in the living room) to the computer (which usually
sits in the bedroom, upstairs etc.) Now, the cable
guy can merely plug the cable modem into the
nearest phone jack in the living room, plug
the computers' HPNA card into the nearest
phone jack and bingo! instant home network.
A lot of vendors have PCI HPNA cards. I believe
linux drivers are being worked on as well.
Also, HPNA uses a different frequency range
from G.Lite, so you could potentially have
ADSL and HPNA signals on the same phone
network.
BTW, we have also a USB version of this
hub, and a wireless version is on the way!
We are also planning to build many more
cool features into this box that I cannot
talk about right now.
Hari. (gopal.harikumar@motorola.com)
I guess the discussion is coming to a point whether we are no longer discussing Motorola's product, as stated in the article itself, but to the option the user does to the service being provided to him. You see, it's pretty much like somebody else told in the main thread: we are paying for the signal. What scares me is when we have money talking louder than quality of service. When we talk about high-speed connections, we want freedom too. I mean, what if I just connect a DSL machine to another machine thru another ethernet card and don't let it get nothing from the Internet, but still be able to get files I got from the Internet with that machine? Will that bypass the ToS? I guess so. It's time to stop with stupid commercial contracts obligating you to not do what you want to with things you've already paid for. I have heard true rumors that the new Brazilian DSL company named Speedy is limiting the number of TCP connections you can make at the same time! What is that? The same thing about a Cable Modem ISP, called Virtua, which is charging for bandwidth (you get 1GB/MONTH with the standard access plan). Come on, give us a break.
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Carlos Laviola