On Fri, 5 Oct 2007, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
There is some discussion in one of the drafts about what the client would be, but the discussion is not very illuminating. In my experience, there are two ways of connecting to DSL networks: with a simple modem, that doesn't do much except some protocol translation, and with a home gateway/router with the modem function built in. In the former case, the modem generally passes authentication protocols through more or less transparently, so any device connected to the modem, such as a PC or a home gateway/router without the modem function built in, will have to engage in authentication directly. In the case of the integrated home gateway, the authentication credentials would be configured on the gateway and client PCs wouldn't have to run the authentication protcol.
I believe a third option also exists and has some but not so significant market share as the first two: DSL adapter resides in a PCI card or USB stick that's plugged to the computer.
As a result, 'no host changes' becomes more blurred and in practice, anything a DSL router needs to implement must be implemented in common host operating systems as well.
But I guess the perspective the DSL forum has here is that they can tell the user/ISP deploying this technology to buy a new CPE (brings in more money too, yay!) but they cannot require the user to upgrade their host operating system.
-- Pekka Savola "You each name yourselves king, yet the Netcore Oy kingdom bleeds." Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings _______________________________________________ Int-area mailing list [email protected] https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/int-area
