[AusNOG] Less than 10% of IPv4 Addresses Remain Unallocated

[Scott Howard]

On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 5:17 PM, Curtis Bayne <curtis at bayne.com.au> wrote:

>  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.
>

At best that's splitting hairs.

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.

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.

This is no different.
>

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?

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?

  Scott
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