> If someone calls up for help with a > configuration problem, that may be six month's of > profits from that customer eaten up in the cost of answering the call. That is because the current Internet pricing has been screwed-up from the start. LD settlements between telcos are fully applicable to ISPs but have never been instituted. Internet has been subsidised for years by the local access but now as wireline declines everybody starts feeling the pain. Usage based billing and inter-ISP settlements start showing up lately and they fit well for the Internet. Otherwise transit providers as well as heavy users rip all the benefits. Peter Sherbin --- John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > > --On Thursday, March 30, 2006 19:30 +1200 Andrew > McGregor > <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> Your ISP charges you 9 times as much for IPv4 > addresses as > >> they do for bandwidth? I'd recommend switching > ISPs. All > >> the ones I've seen charge a > >> small premium for additional IP space, but it's > never more > >> than about a 50% premium. > > > > Not if you don't live in the US. There are no > options here > > that are at all cheap. Usually you get a flat > "we don't do > > that". And they don't do v6 either. > > If it makes you feel better (it probably won't), in > much of the > US, the story from the ISPs goes like this: > > * We don't do that on our residential service, if > you > want _any_ IPv4 addresses assigned to you, you need > to > buy the commercial service. > > * The commercial service costs around ten times as > much > as the residential one for similar bandwidth _less_ > service (often no free email, free web hosting, > "user > protection" software tools, etc.) > > * If you want more than one address on the > commercial > service, you will pay some small incremental charge > for > it. But the real incremental charge starts at > address > number 1 and is tied up with the "type of service" > shift. > > However, we need to keep something else in mind, > which > Iljitsch's note hints at. If I'm an ISP trying to > sell a > low-end service to low-end customers at a low (but > still > profitable) price, I need to cut customer support > costs to the > absolute minimum. If someone calls up for help with > a > configuration problem, that may be six month's of > profits from > that customer eaten up in the cost of answering the > call. To > that sort of ISP, NATs, and ISP-supplied routers > that support > NATs, have a _huge_ advantage, which is that all > supported > customer LANs are identical -- same design, same > exact internal > addresses, etc. That is very important from a > support > standpoint -- length of calls, skill levels > required, ability to > construct clear FAQs and avoid calls entirely, and > so on. > > For the community, there are elements of "you get > what you pay > for" in this. And, for the ISPs, unless we figure > out ways to > provide the same level of support convenience with > public > addresses, we will certainly see NATs with IPv6 as > well as IPv4. > > john > > > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf