Re: North America not interested in IP V6

[Niels Bakker <niels=nanog () bakker net>]

> > > [E.B. Dreger writes]
> > > > > Assign unchanging IP address based on MAC address.  Done/done.

> > > * alex () yuriev com (alex () yuriev com) [Sat 02 Aug 2003, 20:28 CEST]:
> > > > And quadrupple your techsupport costs? Thanks, but no thanks.

[Niels Bakker writes]
> > > For always assigning the same IP address to a customer?  Why would this
> > > increase support costs?

[Christopher L. Morrow writes]
> > especially done via dhcp... you could probably even automate getting
> > new ips from a dynamic pool and slapping them into permanent assignments.

* rayw () rayw net (Ray Wong) [Sat 02 Aug 2003, 21:29 CEST]:
> And when the customer slaps in a replacement NIC (recall that with wintel
> NICs the MAC is carried with the card) and he can't get his old address
> back, do you expect to convince all your customers that's ok, or train
> your support folks to go into your DHCP config database and reassign the
> "permanent" assignment?  Or do you setup a web-based reg system whereby
> the customer must connect and get the address reassigned?  How little
> support do you think any of those options will require?

That's one way of doing it; a large cable ISP in the Netherlands
required customers to phone in when they had fried their network card.
Nowadays the cable modems handed out to subscribers allow configuration
of this by the end customer.

BUT: I don't think Chris and me were thinking about big bad ugly LANs
with customers attached indiscriminately, though.  With DSL provisioning
systmes using RFC1483 bridged (do I have my buzzwords correct here?) the
DHCP server can discriminate between customers based on VCI/VPI numbers
instead, negating the need to look at the MAC address of the request.


> Who was it that said, "if you can't identify at least 3 new problems 
> introduced by any solution, you don't understand the situation?"

Or you don't understand ours.  After all, it's currently all getting
done already this way.


        -- Niels (who thinks IPv6 Router Advertisements are broken when
                  hosts are multihomed)