On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 5:17 PM, Curtis Bayne <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:curtis@bayne.com.au">curtis@bayne.com.au</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<p><font size="2">There was never a customer demand for NAT - it was just something that CPE vendors implemented because there was no other choice - it was in their best interests to do so for the contiguity of their product.<br>
</font></p></div></blockquote><div><br>At best that's splitting hairs.<br><br>There was very much a customer demand for the ability to run multiple systems (relatively) transparently behind the single IP address assigned by the ISP.<br>
<br>NAT was the solution that the CPE vendors used to solve that customer demand. Ask my parents or probably most internet users what "NAT" is and they wouldn't have the first clue - the just know that there's a magic box that connects to the phone line and which they can connect their multiple computers to. They don't explicitly want NAT, they just want the ability to run multiple devices simultaneously.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><p><font size="2">This is no different.<br></font></p></div></blockquote><div>
<br>The difference today is that the driver isn't a customer need for the vast majority of customers. Customers only want things like NAT and IPv6 if they solve a problem that the customer has, and for the most part most users don't have a problem today that needs to be solved. They are happy with their $30 magic box that makes the Internet work. Why would they go and spend another $30 (or $50, or more) to buy another magic box that makes the Internet work in a way that - to them - is exactly the same as the way it works today?<br>
<br>The Digital TV analogy has been used, but it's a bad one. DTV gives a different experience to analog, so there's a reason to do it - just like there was a reason to move from analog modems to ADSL. IPv6 is like moving from one model of STB to a different model, just because it's got some features you don't care about and will never explicitly use. Why would you do it?<br>
<br> Scott<br><br></div></div>