Peter Ford wrote 21 November 2004 17:08 To: Noel Chiappa; ietf@xxxxxxxx People seem to forget that people buy NATs for IP address sharing and firewalling. They don't seem to "get it" that there are very few people who would ever buy a NAT because of IPv4 address limitations. cdel> This is difficult to confirm (or deny) as current research into why users buy NAT's is not clear and so this topic is very opinionated. I've organised a survey right now for UK IPv6 TF to try to elicit some evidence and to decipher whether IP layer (v4 or v6) considerations are significantly taken into account in purchasing decisions (amongst other metrics). Sticking my neck out from observation (and not from survey results) the impression I have today is that IP layer issues (irrespective of version) are not generally considered when making purchasing decisions. That is IP is seen as a given and decisions are based on either L2/L1 (i.e., DSL / OC3 etc access issues) or Applications. The health or otherwise of L3 appears to be assumed. This is interesting if true as clearly L3 is the bit that allows anything to run over everything (IP over everything and everything over IP). Anything that gets in the way or breaks that architecture clearly can change this transparency. So it could be argued that people who buy IP services and products such as NAT should be encouraged to consider IP address implications and that they risk placing themselves into an online cul de sac if they are not. Christian Christian de Larrinaga t:+44-(0)844-484-9197 m:+44(0)7989-386778 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Network Brokers Ltd _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf