This may be the wrong time to interject this, but I know of a local cable
company that requires you to register a single MAC address. As the cable
company requires their technicians to install the modem, they can prevent
you from installing a router at a later time (I realize that software can be
installed on the PC to accomplish the same tasks). They rate usage by
'users', which they tie to MAC addresses. Their bandwidth is also published
on their website. If all of this sounds odd, they are the only company
offering Internet service other than dial-up in the area. -->
www.scottsboro.org
Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Rosen [mailto:erosen(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 2:29 PM
To: Fred Baker
Cc: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: trying to reconcile two threads
Fred> I see a longish thread about the fact that some cable companies
Fred> apparently are desperate to charge per IP address (something one can
Fred> only do if IP addresses are in fact a scarce resource)
I think you miss the point here. The cable companies want to charge per
computer, and the only way they can do this is to count the number of IP
addresses they see. If you use NAT, they only see one. This has nothing
whatsoever to do with scarcity of addresses.
Even with IPv6, they would still want to charge by the IP address, and
people would still use NAT to save money.