Re: [LUG] Your ISP

Unless you specifically need static ip addresses (ipv4, and I kinda like
them, but I'm not a typical user)

It's nothing to do with static IP addresses. Today, if an ISP has 10,000 customers then it needs 10,000 IP addresses. It's potentially worse for an ISP that forces you to change your IP address every time you connect too as they need to keep a small pool of unused ones to cycle round.

The days of an ISP having 1000+ customers and 64 modem lines and 64 IP addresses are long gone. (I used to manage one, never again!) Everyone has internet on all the time now. The whole dynamic vs. static IP address is just another thing that the ISPs think they can charge you more for when you "upgrade" to a static IP address. The reality is that ISPs managing dynamic/changing IP addresses actually have more equipment and a more complex setup than ISPs handing out static IP addresses.

That's an interesting point, especially about most users being always-on now.

However, two points there:

1. I've never been charged extra for a static ip. I've chosen ISPs that support it (including the budget llu bethere, now swallowed by sky but still static), but those that don't, don't and won't. Maybe somebody does it as a cost extra, but not seen that.

2. Those who ask for statics tend to have reason to. This equates to additional software/support when they ask for things like rdns allocating and higher outgoing bandwidth (running servers on adsl etc). (Although in mitigation, they tend not to waste the isp's time with problems that are solved by turning it off and on again)

That most isp's use dynamic is simply that they can manage them easier and cheaper. Running low? Throw another /16 into the dhcp pool. Out of ten thousand users, you can bet that even today several hundred will be offline, perhaps because the old man doesn't like leaving anything electrical turned on overnight, or they're on holiday, and that allows reuse.

Those were interesting times though. I remember Zynet having a physical PoP in Plymouth and, was it Truro? To allow customers in those cities the ability to pay local call rates...

Re: [LUG] Your ISP - and IPv6