Re: [homenet] homenet: what now? ... next?

[Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>]

Michael Thomas <[e-mail]> wrote:
    > I would guess that even after 5 years, we still don't have much v6
    > deployment
    > into homes and that's a pretty big problem. Router vendors are not much
    > motivated by that which doesn't have a market.

Cable ISPs in north america (Rogers, Comcast) seem to be turning more and
more IPv6 on daily.  I am going by increasingly visible IPv6 (including ULAs,
btw) at local pubs/restaurants/coffee shops.  But, IPv6 is at this point, a
non-event for users (that's good that they don't notice, btw).

I personally do not believe that Home Router firmware update practices have
significantly improved.  I would welcome more recent data: is anyone
collecting this on a regular basis?  I suspect that 90% of firmware updates
occur because the (integrated) modem is replaced in order to upgrade
bandwidth.

For the last 10 to 15 years the ISP-provided home router has come to dominate
the market, with the belief by the ISPs that this is a MUST that they control
the device.  Many (but not all) at the IETF do not share this view, but most
non-technical users see the ISP provided router is simply saving the trip to
BestBuy, rather than an abdication of control over their home.   If this
trend continues, then I believe that ISPs (residential IAPs) will come to
want to control all IoT devices in the home -- because security -- telling
residential customers what they can and not connect.

I believe that this direction will result in ISPs being 100% liable for
attacks on critical infrastructure; I don't think that this is a place that
ISPs want to be, but I'm not sure that they have understood this yet.

It's clearly not in
Amazon/Google/Facebook/Intel/Samsung/insert-another-IoT-conglomerate's
interest to be told by ISPs what their products may or may not do.
This is an ongoing tussle that that relates in some ways (but not all) to the
net neutrality debate and the desire my ISPs for a cut of the over-top-pie.
My answer is that the consumer should be in control, and that ISPs need to
get out of the home router business entirely.  Home router vendors (or the
service companies they create) should provide first-level support for issues,
and actual real connectivity issues should be submitted electronically.  Not
so different in the way that my furnace maintenance is not provided by my gas
supplier, but my gas supplier gets to inspect the hookup.

When we started this effort we heard of real situations such as Fred's
original FUN BOF slides on how dual-geek households are forced not to share
printers due to corporate home firewall requirements.  And that we should
expect the situation to get worse.  Those slides are close to ten years old.
I'd like to know if they are still at relevant.  Maybe they aren't.
If not, why not?

--
Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-