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BT Begins Customer Tests of Carrier Grade NAT

Posted by timothy on from the party-line-but-with-less-yelling dept.

judgecorp writes "BT Retail has started testing Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT) with its customer. CGNAT is a controversial practice, in which IP addresses are shared between customers, limiting what customers can do on the open Internet. Although CGNAT goes against the Internet's original end-to-end principles, ISPs say they are forced to use it because IPv4 addresses are running out, and IPv6 is not widely implemented. BT's subsidiary PlusNet has already carried out CGNAT trials, and now BT is trying it on "Option 1" customers who pay for low Internet usage."

14 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Priority Failure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If people had spent as much money on IP6 as they have on NAT, we'd be done by now.

    1. Re:Priority Failure. by Noughmad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      that doesn't mean artificially scarce resources, which aren't truly scarce.

      That's why those De Beers guys are so poor.

      --
      PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
    2. Re:Priority Failure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      99.999 percent of people will never notice or care. They could make a free opt-out to satisfy the geeks and few would ever even ask for it.

    3. Re:Priority Failure. by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, this time never existed. Back when everyone who had an internet connection cared about their connectivity there was no NAT - or at least none at the provider level. It's only when consumers hit the internet that we got NAT on a wide scale, and all those people only consumed data for the most part. People who were early adopters and were used to being hands on, a small fraction of the growing tide, cared then and care now. As time marches on, that fraction gets smaller and smaller.

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    4. Re:Priority Failure. by rudy_wayne · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, it's sad but it was also inevitable in a world of companies driven more by selfish buisness interests than a desire to improve the system as a whole.

      Unfortunately, it's not that simply. ISPs are faced with a very serious and legitimate business problem. -- switching to IPv6 is very expensive but provides no benefit to them. For example, the millions (tens of millions?, hundreds of millions??) of modems that would have to be replaced because they can only handle IPv4. These are typically supplied by the ISP. Replacing all of them is an enormous expense, and when you're done, everything works exactly the same as it did before. From a business standpoint, there is no benefit to justify the expense.

      Or, the ISPs can say to their customers:

      "We've made a change to our system. It isn't any faster, it isn't any different, everything works exactly as it did before, BUT, you have to pay for a new modem or else you can no longer connect to the Internet. Oh, and by the way, you'll probably have to buy a new router too, since many home routers, even new ones sold recently, don't support IPv6. So good luck with that."

    5. Re:Priority Failure. by Sarten-X · · Score: 4, Insightful

      De Beers creates artificial exclusivity, not scarcity. It's a subtle but important distinction.

      They produce a product that people value not because it's particularly rare, but because it's just uncommon enough to be a status symbol. Various substitutes can look and act similarly, so the high prices aren't justified by an actual need for the product. Rather, the need is for the brand itself, and the company creates and perpetuates the value of that brand by limiting supply. They ensure there's just enough supply to meet demand, but not enough surplus to impact the prices people are willing to pay.

      Steve Jobs understood this concept well.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    6. Re:Priority Failure. by andreyv · · Score: 5, Insightful

      99.999 percent of people will never notice or care.

      ...until one of them gets IP banned on a popular website/game, and brings down all others.

    7. Re:Priority Failure. by Shompol · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They produce a product ...

      diamonds is not a product, it's a mineral (aka raw material, commodity)

      that people value not because it's particularly rare, but because it's just uncommon

      and what is the difference between "rare" and "uncommon"?

      ... enough to be a status symbol.

      It is not a status symbol because it is rare or uncommon -- it is a status symbol because De Beers adverised it... as a brand! "Diamonds are Forever"???? Have you ever seen anybody advertising a commodity before? "Gold is Forever", anybody?

      Various substitutes can look and act similarly, so the high prices aren't justified by an actual need for the product.

      Excepts this product is needed practically everywhere in technology, if not for De Beers having a chock-hold on the market and inflating prices. These guys produces a flawless artificial diamond for use in technology, and got death threats over it.

      Rather, the need is for the brand itself, and the company creates and perpetuates the value of that brand by limiting supply. They ensure there's just enough supply to meet demand, but not enough surplus to impact the prices people are willing to pay. Steve Jobs understood this concept well.

      Yes, they turned a commodity into a brand, by monopolizing 90% of supply. The problem is -- it is a commodity, a raw material needed everywhere in technology. If the price went down it could revolutionize semiconductors industry. It can also be artificially produced from graphite, but looks like that technology is going to be squashed by De Beers, much like the electric car was destroyed by the oil industry.

  2. Ah, the bad old days... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Fantastic! This will be just as wonderful as AOL was, back when they were still unsure about this whole 'ISP' fad, and offered ghastly semi-access to the internet proper. I think I just threw up in my mouth from all the nostalgia!

  3. Governments and corporations love this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    They have "fixed" the internet so it looks more like television. You are back to be a content consumer, and any attempt to communicate directly with another content consumer will be regulated.

  4. Oh, the old internet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Presumably they'll give you a block of static ipv6 at least

  5. Re:Just use IPV6 by Khyber · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's BT. No explanation for the sheer incompetence is required.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  6. Re:On the other hand.... by mark-t · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nope.... not remotely. Which is the whole problem.

    Because if BT implements CGN, then the IP that somebody outside ot BT would have for somebody inside of it would actually map to a whole bunch of BT subscribers. BT has no possible way to tell which subscriber utilized the IP because all of them did... possibly even all at exactly the same time, unless BT maps every subscriber to a unique global IP anyways, at which point BT doesn't gain anything by using CGN at all.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  7. Re:How about.... by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Exactly!

    Although CGNAT goes against the Internet's original end-to-end principles, ISPs say they are forced to use it because IPv4 addresses are running out, and IPv6 is not widely implemented.

    Well, implement it then, for crikessakes! It's your job!

    "Although getting seriously overweight goes against principles of healthy life, I am forced to buy bigger clothes because the old ones cannot fit, and all I do is eat junk food."