UK ISP PlusNet Testing Carrier-Grade NAT Instead of IPv6 445
judgecorp writes "Faced with the shortage of IPv4 addresses and the failure of IPv6 to take off, British ISP PlusNet is testing carrier-grade network address translation CG-NAT, where potentially all the ISP's customers could be sharing one IP address, through a gateway. The move is controversial as it could make some Internet services fail, but PlusNet says it is inevitable, and only a test at this stage."
Regarding the failure of IPv6, these graphs imply otherwise.
Not "instead of", but "in addition to" (Score:5, Insightful)
Dual-stack deployment with NAT'd IPv4 alongside with IPv6 is the only viable short-term option for consumer ISPs. You can't just cut off people from the IPv4 internet, you'd leave them with a pretty much useless internet connection.
Really instead of ? (Score:2, Insightful)
I highly doubt it makes sense for plusnet to do this "instead" of IPv6, but it does make sense to do this "as well" as IPv6.
I see the transition involving something like these 5 steps.
1.) Everyone needs IPv4, IPv6 is useless (no content).
2.) Everyone needs IPv4, IPv6 reduces the amount of IPv4 traffic you use.
3.) Most people still need IPv4, but IPv6 is most of the traffic.
4.) IPv4 is a niche requirement. Most normal users won't notice if they don't have it.
5.) IPv4 is Cobol and I come back and get a fat paycheque because I still remember how it works.
I think we are at (2) right now. I think CGN *IS* inevitable (even if it sucks) as part of a transition strategy. If we had started transitioning seriously a few years ago, we might have avoided this, but we didn't.
Re:I recall MxStream (Score:5, Insightful)
This may be a feature and not a bug to these ISPs.
The business has changed. They are probably fine with screwing up incoming services. They can charge to fix what they screwed up by using NAT.
Re:I recall MxStream (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumer grade network connections do not run servers.
A far bigger problem is that a lot of internet services these days use IP-based blocks as the final "brute force" version of "you are abusing the service, go away". It would really suck to be under an ISP that shows every customer coming from a single IP. You'd find yourself banned from all kinds of random places as soon as someone using the same ISP decides to be an idiot.
Re:Really instead of ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us did. All the computers and network equipment at my house has been ready for IPv6 for years. I am just waiting for my ISP to get with the program.
ISPs are the problem here. But with government-granted monopolies without regulation, they have no incentive to support IPv6.
Re:I recall MxStream (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes they do, pretty regularly. Ever played a multiplayer game?
Re:I recall MxStream (Score:5, Insightful)
That will be a problem of the ISP then, if their customers can't use legitimate services because the ISP can't differentiate between the culprit and the innocent customers, the ISP has a problem. The ISP then has to have either a very good customer management which allows to disconnect culprits very fast without too many false positives, or the ISP has to introduce some kind of class ips, where the customers without complains share the "good ip", and customers with some bad stains get degraded to other, partly blacklisted IPs.
Do you really think any ISPs are going to take on these kinds of responsibilities? You're expecting them to basically be moderators for every forum on the Internet. Aside from the fact that they *shouldn't* be doing this (they should be dumb pipes), they also don't *want* to do this because it's logistically impossible and would open them up to potential legal liability.
Re:Three birds with one stone (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually not true. Most NATs can be penetrated from the outside; they have to be able to be penetrated, or things like Skype don't work. Pretty much any UDP-based protocol requires that the NAT open holes. So the notion that NAT == Firewall is utterly incorrect, and in fact the feeling of security that you apparently have based on this misconception is likely to cause you harm in the future.
Re:My Rant.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Edit should be supported until moderation or a reply occurs.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)