Re: dynamic or static IPv6 prefixes to residential customers

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

On Jul 26, 2011, at 12:28 PM, Sascha Lenz wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I will like to know, from those deploying IPv6 services to residential
> > customers, if you are planning to provide static or dynamic IPv6 prefixes.
> >
> > Just to be clear, I'm for static prefix delegation to residential
> > customers, however I heard that some ISPs are doing dynamic delegations,
> > the same way as is common today with IPv4.
> >
> > I don't thin it make sense, as the main reason for doing so in IPv4 was
> > address exhaustion and legacy oversubscription models such as PPP/dial-up.
>
> well, it does make sense for most of the residential customers nowadays, because
> they are indoctrinated with this idea of dynamic+NAT == privacy for over a decade
> now and don't know any better.
IMNSHO, education is always a better alternative than preserving ignorance or
worse, mis-information.

> So, i don't think it's a good idea to hand out static prefixes to residential customers
> by default, it might cause pain.

I think it is an excellent idea to do so. I think that any delusions of privacy achieved
through dynamic+NAT are exactly that and need to be shattered. The sooner, the
better.

> The best current practice would be, to default to a dynamic prefix, but enable your
> more advanced customers to change that to a static prefix at will in your customer
> service web-portal or something.

Sounds unnecessarily complicated and with absolutely no benefit whatsoever.

> But i have no idea how to sell this to your marketing department.
> They again are usually used to sell static IPs for an extra fee, and usually don't 
> want to change that with IPv6. That's bullshit for IPv6 of course.

It was mostly bullshit for IPv4.

> (Another idea, which i scrapped after thinking about it in depth was, to hand out
> a dynamic P2P prefix (/64) + a /56 (or /48) static on top, so the customer/CPE could chose
> what to use, but that is actually too complicated in the end and would need support
> in the CPE firmware)

By default, we (Hurricane Electric) hand out a static /64 for the tunnel point-to-point
and a static /64 for the customer LAN. Upon request we will also issue the customer a
static /48 for their LAN structure.

Owen