[Gllug] UK hit by major ADSL outage

[Mike Brodbelt]

On Wed, 2001-11-21 at 12:06, Rev Simon Rumble wrote:
> Something somewhat related to this is a thing that's nagged me for a
> long time.  Why to ADSL providers insist on having to authenticate
> users before giving them network access?  Surely it would all be a lot
> simpler to just say "you've got the line, here's an IP".  One less
> service, one less thing to go wrong.
> 

The reason this happens is because of the way BT present the IPStream
service. If you have an ADSL connection, you can purchase your own
router, configure it to an IP address that you know is valid on
someone's network, plug in, and go. The username and password is the
*only* thing that prevents that. The ADSL kit gives you access to the
IPStream network. From there, you can use absolutely any ISP you like,
and the username/password in the router is the only way the ISP knows
you're who you say you are, and not just J random user, claiming to have
a routable IP address, somewhere in BT's IPStream cloud.

It really is necessary - they're not just trying to do you over...
Actually, I believe that in July of this year, BT started attempting to
build blocks in the the IPStream network, so that if you're line is
provisioned by ISP X, you can only reach that ISP's network across the
IPStream cloud, and not any network you feel like....

Mike.


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