BT Begins Customer Tests of Carrier Grade NAT

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."

No choice

[markus_baertschi]

The carrier has probably no choice. He can no longer get IPv4 addresses for new customers, so either he refuses customers or uses NAT to map multiple customers on the same IP.

On the other hand, the average Joe customer will not see the difference. He can surf as before and all his apps will work as before. Some apps (mostly p2p stuff) will suffer, but most internet user don't use those.

If you as customer do need a 'real' IP, then there always is the option to get a more expensive option.

Re:"Not widely inplemented"

[xorsyst]

BT already gives all customers a home hub (router) as part of the deal, this is pretty standard in the uk. They upgrade them every couple of years for you, so going to an IPv6-enabled one is not difficult.

I've had to deal with this.

[Gerafin]

Having to share an IP address with tons of people is absolutely, 100% a crippling experience. There are plenty of sites (newspapers, the site I get textures from, RapidShare, etc.) who limit their services by IP address. There's nothing quite like seeing messages about how your IP has exceeded the download limit on a website you've never visited before. Also: having to deal with bans when playing online games, as many are IP-based. The impossibility of hosting your own servers for games or other purposes. BitTorrent is nigh unusable. I would not pay a dime for this kind of a service, ever again.

CGNAT has nothing to do with End-to-end

[bgt421]

The end-to-end principle has to do with where network logic is placed, not which devices are reachable, routeable, or have an IP address. As simply as possible, the end-to-end principle means that we should have smart end hosts and a dumb network. This is why routers don't guarantee packet delivery -- its up to the hosts (with TCP, et al.) to ensure this. This is in contrast to telephony networks, where the network is responsible for almost everything.

There are good reasons to oppose CGNAT, but the "end to end principle" is not one of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_principle [wikipedia.org]
or, if you're inclined to primary sources:
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/ana/Publications/PubPDFs/End-to-End%20Arguments%20in%20System%20Design.pdf [mit.edu]

21CN

[TinheadNed]

Apropos of nothing, here's what BT did invest in for their "21st Century Network [wikipedia.org]".

It's all IPv4.

Re:Priority Failure.

[hinchles]

My first ADSL connection back was with BT it was a 512kb service it was nearly £80 a month and came with a block of static IP address's 7 in total but lnly 5 usable as one was reserved for the router and one was your personal gateway on their network their little black router also had no NAT facilities.

And it was CONSUMER level not business level :)

Re:Priority Failure.

[wagnerrp]

They did fix the issue. They designed IPv6. The trouble is that fifteen years later when the need is finally here, companies are too cheap/lazy/stubborn to adopt it.

Re:Priority Failure.

[AmiMoJo]

Virgin, or NTL as it was back then, thought that too once. They introduced a transparent web cache and it broke a huge number of sites. It was impossible to download files from popular websites because it looked like the same IP address was trying to download 50,000 at once. Video streaming sites instantly banned the proxies after seeing a massive DOS attack from them. Any site that needed you to log in was likely to block all NTL customers due to multiple failed login attempts from the proxy's IP addresses.

People did notice and did complain, and after a while they dropped them.

Re:Priority Failure.

[Sarten-X]

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

Diamond is indeed a mineral, with many industrial uses. Most of the diamonds mined, though, aren't used or marketed as an exclusive product. More on this in a minute.

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

Something "rare" is hard to find, even if you have the resources to acquire it. Something "uncommon" is just something that's not commonplace. It might also be rare, but in this case (as with Apple products) the price is kept just high enough that not everybody that wants one will have the resources to get one. They're readily available, but for some reason, it's still remarkable to see one.

To use the venerable car analogy, a DeLorean is rare, because there's so few of them in existence. A brand-new Mercedes Benz is uncommon, because it's unlikely for the average person to buy one.

...it is a status symbol because De Beers adverised it... as a brand!...

Less of a brand (because diamonds don't carry a big label saying "De Beers"), but more of a specific product. The symbolism of a diamond standing for love and commitment is purely a De Beers invention. Want to impress your wife? Give her a new Mercedes. Love her forever? Give her a diamond!

A car is just a chunk of metal, and a diamond is just a rock. A chunk of metal with the promise of reliable transportation and the luxury of comfort is a product. A rock with the symbolism of love and promise of durability is also a product.

Have you ever seen anybody advertising a commodity before? "Gold is Forever", anybody?

Every. Goddamned. Day.

I work in finance, so I watch a lot of finance-oriented television. Yes, there are many companies touting their gold-related investment strategies, which basically boil down to "buy gold and make the price go up so my pre-existing gold holdings are worth more". In a way, it's similar: They're shifting the public perception of a mundane item into a valuable 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.

There are many other [wikipedia.org] manufacturers of synthetic diamonds, perfect for industrial use. Until recently, though, the diamonds they could easily produce were all colored, which aren't as suitable for jewelry. Now Gemesis, Scio, and others can produce gem-quality colorless diamonds.

These guys produces a flawless artificial diamond for use in technology, and got death threats over it.

[citation needed]

If the price went down it could revolutionize semiconductors industry.

The price is currently a few dollars per carat, in powder form. One carat is a huge amount compared to the size of existing transistors, so it's rather ridiculous to blame the price for the lack of diamond semiconductors. Instead, it's likely the immaturity of diamond semiconductor technology [pbs.org] that holds up back:

The combinations of the extreme properties of diamond ... suggest that diamond should out-perform nearly every other semiconducting material system for electronic applications. IN PRINCIPLE! The reality is that there are many other factors involved in developing and implementing a technology: cost, manufacturing infrastructure, investment, and knowledge base. I think it is fair to say that diamond materials need a lot more research, knowledge, and technology development before they can be considered a mature semiconducting material.

...that technology is going to be squashed by De Beers, much like the electric ca