[e2e] using p2p overlays to overcome recursive NATs/realms

[Christian Huitema]

> > >From that perspective, the operators who are charging for extra
> addresses
> >probably hate NAT boxes, since they have a negative impact on their
> >revenue.
> 
> Well, there was a "leak" from an anonymous Comcast employee recently
that
> they had organized a task force to detect NAT users and kick them off
the
> network.  Don't know if it is true, but nothing surprises me.  What's
odd
> is that Comcast doesn't offer a way to buy multiple IP addresses per
home
> (well, you can try to put multiple cable modems on the same line), so
they
> aren't "losing revenue" unless they really think that lots of
customers
> are
> using wireless & NATs to share with their neighbors.

Casting the debate in terms of evil and goodness is unlikely to result
in anything positive.  It is fairly legitimate for providers like
Comcast to differentiate between casual users and heavy hitters, and to
tariff accordingly. On the other hand, there are different ways to do
this, with different engineering results. Trying to restrict the number
of addresses has been proven to backfire: you get the deployment of home
NATs, the ISP does not do more business, and the network becomes
brittle. Why don't we look at this as an engineering issue, and provide
the community with better tools?

-- Christian Huitema