

Verizon DSL is moving to Carrier Grade NAT - ianlevesque
http://www22.verizon.com/support/residential/internet/highspeedinternet/networking/troubleshooting/portforwarding/123897.htm

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agwa
I'm surprised this is happening already in the US. ARIN still has address
space available[1] (not much, but more than Europe and Asia) and (unlike Asia)
broadband growth is slowing in the US (since nearly everyone has broadband
now)[2]. Does Verizon really expect to run out of IP addresses for new
subscribers soon? Or do they need IP addresses for something else? I'd love to
hear the thoughts of someone more knowledgeable about this.

[1] <https://www.arin.net/resources/request/ipv4_countdown.html>

[2] [http://gigaom.com/2012/11/14/us-broadbands-new-reality-
slowi...](http://gigaom.com/2012/11/14/us-broadbands-new-reality-slowing-
growth/)

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kevin_nisbet
I can't speak for Verizon, but in Canada I know we're looking at Carrier grade
NAT since Cellular is requiring additional IP space and is still a massive
growth area.

We already use NAT for cellular users, but as the network grows, public IP
space is still needed for network equipment, for the NAT gateways, etc.

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bryanmig
This isnt _that_ big a deal. They say that you can opt out of this and that it
does not apply to Fios or Business customers.

I'm sure there is a huge amount of customers who will never have any clue that
anything has changed since they dont play games, run servers, need VPNs, etc.

It's probably a good thing for everyone else given that it does raise even
more awareness of the problem.

~~~
georgemcbay
There are some large-ish groups of people out there for whom this will cause
issues, eg. people who play console multiplayer gamers (millions of people
including Halo/COD/etc players).

As someone who games on Xbox Live, a part of me would actually like to see
this become more common with other carriers to force next gen consoles to move
to a dedicated server model since the current "pick a host among the gamers in
the lobby and hope for the best" model results in a fairly poor experience a
lot of time even without pervasive CGNATing.

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Aloha
And so? You can still opt out?

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vy8vWJlco
I can also opt out of my ISP's DNS hijacking, but I don't bother to anymore.
(It keeps forgetting me when I get a new address.) It's simply become the new
norm.

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ianlevesque
This is unfortunately going to be just the first of many consumer ISPs that
resort to CGNAT before they have an IPv6 rollout underway.

~~~
wmf
Verizon is doing IPv6; hopefully they'll turn on IPv6 at the same time as CGN.

~~~
Sami_Lehtinen
This is exactly what I was thinking about. IPv4 with NAT and full IPv6
connectivity. Btw. Does carrier grade NAT support UPnP?

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ianlevesque
UPnP doesn't leave your local network, so no. You cannot forward ports at all
behind CGNAT.

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Sami_Lehtinen
Well, in case of CGNAT is run (naturally) by the ISP, and network connection
from that point is bridged. So yes, I think UPnP will reach their system. If
they just want to honor it. Maybe with very restricted port number ranges /
portscustomer IP or so. If they have smart mapping system, they can map
customers even to multiple IP's so that everyone really needing to open
specified port can actually do, because I'm sure they'll NAT to range of
public IPs.

~~~
trotsky
You misunderstand CGN deployments - there are still different address spaces
on either side of the customer router. It's just now both of them are
private/non routable prefixes, or in some cases the telco side is done using
six. There's no briding and UPNP will never work - once you are on CGN data
paths have to be set up from the customer side.

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fiatmoney
Does this mean it will become much more difficult to associate an IP address
with a customer account for the purposes of file-sharing-suit trolls?

~~~
tzs
What is a "file-sharing-suit troll"? Generally "troll" in lawsuit context
means a plaintiff whose business model is to buy rights to IP that the IP
owner is not using and then litigate. None of the file sharing suits I'm aware
of fit that model.

~~~
Maxious
Prenda Law. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204665> They were caught
recently trying to use the identity of a janitor they knew as a defendant.
[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130402/12223322549/deep-d...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130402/12223322549/deep-
dive-prenda-law-is-dead.shtml)

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shmerl
Thanks for posting this. I'd completely miss that option to opt out.

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JoshGlazebrook
I'm really not looking forward to this in general.

Isn't there also the option of using the same ipv4 address on a few thousand
customers and just assign them 10 routable ports?

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joenathan
That's pretty much what this is.

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lucb1e
I wonder what's more expensive, putting up carrier-grade NAT (which sounds
like a lot of work) or implementing IPv6 and buying IPv4 addresses for the
time being.

~~~
wmf
Lee Howard from Time Warner Cable has run some numbers:
<http://asgard.org/documents.html>

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Aloha
I've been waiting for a large ISP to do this, its just a matter of time. In
the future its going to be IPv6 + CGN. Public IPv4 will be a rarity.

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jamescun
If there is an opt-out scheme, I cannot see this becoming that big a deal for
the majority of customers and their service will likely continue working as it
did before.

(I am not saying there aren't downsides to CGNAT for consumers, but these
downsides aren't likely to be noticed by the average joe)

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salem
Personally, I'm surprised this has not happened sooner. I heard rumors of
other large US carriers planning this. Maybe now gamers will lead the charge
on IPv6 :-)

