Technical reasons static IP costs more

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#3266048 29-Jul-2024 21:18

Spaghetti:

Setting a static reservation in a DHCP pool takes me less than a minute to do.

If only life was this simple in telco land!

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CamH

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#3266049 29-Jul-2024 21:18

Spaghetti:

CamH:

Dynamic is a lot easier to manage. If we just throw IPs in a pool and they get assigned at random, it's a lot easier than all the backend work to assign a static and ensure it doesn't mess with any future plans. For example, if I assign some static's in a block, and suddenly want to pull a /25 to assign somewhere else, if there's statics in the block, I can't do that. If everyone's dynamic, I can just go - cool, these are no longer in the dynamic block.

Can't you just put every available IP address in a DHCP pool but set reservations for the customers who want static?

Even if you have a static assigned /32 IPv4 in the middle of a /24, can't you add all the surrounding IP's to DHCP pools?

No, because then I can't pick up a /25 at a later date and use it elsewhere (let's say we want to move it to private cloud), because there might be 8 static's in that /25 that I want to move.

Just because your home router has a DHCP server that you can just click to make an IP static, doesn't mean this is the case for RSPs, especially big ones. Even for us, who are small, to assign a static, it has to be documented, checked and added to RADIUS. In a large RSP, they'll have tools for this, but all of that costs money. Also, there isn't just one big router with all the IP blocks on it at the RSP.

With my example above, if I want to put my /25 into private cloud, it's a completely different router. I can't just leave it on the router that provides internet, because they're completely different setups.

I think your understanding of the work needed to make such things work is quite rudimentary, but it comes down to this:

Cost to manage static IP's is higher than dynamic (tooling, technical time, admin time etc)
Cost to obtain IPv4 IP addresses is high
Most people don't need a static IPv4 and therefore assigning them to everyone is a colossal waste of resources
If you want a static IPv4, you must pay for it because it is a non-zero cost to the RSP

RunningMan

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#3266051 29-Jul-2024 21:22

Spaghetti:

Setting a static reservation in a DHCP pool takes me less than a minute to do.

Are you doing that for:

a) your internal private IPv4 network with a single standalone router or

b) for a commercial public network comprised of a combination of owned and rented subnets of differents sizes, are non contiguous, may have to be given back when rental agreements expire, multiple routers, BNGs and layers of redundancy and have SLAs in place for if (when) there are issues, and at the same time dealing with all the support issues raised by previous posters?

Sorry for the long winded reply, but it emphasises the key point that everyone is making - it's more complex to do this for a commercial business than it is for an end user, and as with any business, added complexity = added cost.

Spaghetti

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#3266053 29-Jul-2024 21:24

CamH:

Cost to manage static IP's is higher than dynamic (tooling, technical time, admin time etc)
Cost to obtain IPv4 IP addresses is high
Most people don't need a static IPv4 and therefore assigning them to everyone is a colossal waste of resources
If you want a static IPv4, you must pay for it because it is a non-zero cost to the RSP

These are good points, however I think second point is irrelevant because if you get a dynamic IPv4 or a static, it's still the cost of one IPv4.

2degrees is charging $10 per month for a static, do you think that accurately reflects this extra resource required?

Also how about IPv6? 2degrees also want to charge me for a static prefix.

KiwiSurfer

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#3266055 29-Jul-2024 21:30

Spaghetti:

it's still the cost of one IPv4.

That point has been refuted several times in this thread several different ways. Not sure what else anyone can say.

BlackrazorNZ

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#3266057 29-Jul-2024 21:30

Spaghetti:
To use this analogy, you can put a "no parking" sign up on allocated parks, and let the others drive get a dynamic car park. You still get 100 people able to park.

Maybe I’m dumb (highly likely) but I don’t get what you are saying.

Are you saying the building still has capacity for 100 parks even if some of them are reserved? If so, of course it does. The physical space still exists.

The difference is, if the building owner has 100 parks, reserves 20 of them, and 90 cars suddenly show up, none of which are the reservees, then you have a situation where despite having 10 parks more than ‘needed’, the building owner still needs to turn away 10 possible paying clients because he has not enough ‘free’ parks.

Your argument would hold true if there were sufficient IPv4 addresses available to every ISP for them to give every client one and still have a surplus. But even if that was the case (and it isn’t) it wouldn’t make good business sense. The ‘ideal’ quantity of IP addresses an ISP wants to purchase is exactly equal to their maximum simultaneous demand. They might have 5000 clients, but if only 3500 are online at any point, they only need 3500 IP’s for those 5000 clients.

Static IP’s force them, in that scenario, to have 3501 (or more) because they cannot use yours if you don’t happen to be using it at the time and the 3500 others still show up.

Plus, and unrelated, but - people want static IP’s and what people want they are prepared to pay for, and as Publilius Syrus said, ‘the value of a thing is whatever it’s purchaser is prepared to pay for it’

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nztim

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#3266163 29-Jul-2024 23:50

Spaghetti:

2degrees is charging $10 per month for a static, do you think that accurately reflects this extra resource required?

You are not in the industry, so you have no idea

ISP can route a /24 (256 Addresses) to a particular BNG (board and network gateway) this is one route in my route table (cpu/memory/etc)
ISPs customer wants a Static IP, now ISP has to route a /32 (Single IP) to the BNG of that customer - Same CPU/mem as the 256 IPs carried in a single route in example above (a route is a route in an ISP network, no matter how many IPs are carried by that single entry

Now, the ISP in theory, could route 256 addresses to the BNG (single route) for the purpose of static ips, but if that customer moves to another part of the country, and is then told by the ISP "you have to change IP because we routed these IPS to this particular BNG" will not go down to well

Also the ISP may have not have enough static ip customers in a particular area to warrant routing a large range to a particular BNG

A large ISP like ONE, Spark or 2degrees will route /16s (65536 IPS) or larger to BNGs for dynamic ips but all static IPs will be individual /32 routes taking up CPU and Memory because they are to be portable nation wide

TBH $10 is a bargin considering these routers cost hundreds of thousands of dollars

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roobarb

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#3266167 30-Jul-2024 04:46

Its like the difference between the postman and the milkman.

You don't care which milk bottle you get, but you want all the post that is addressed to you.

If you are client-only, you don't care what IP you get and there advantages in regularly getting different ones.

If you are a server you are likely to have registered your IP address with a DNS provider and don't want to keep changing it every time your lease runs out and you get allocated a new one.

So a static IP has a different service level agreement compared to a dynamically allocated one, and more can be charged for it. So that is what tends to happen. If the ISP is pocketing the difference, that is literally their business.

Spaghetti

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#3266172 30-Jul-2024 07:21

nztim:

TBH $10 is a bargin considering these routers cost hundreds of thousands of dollars

$10 a month is a bargain for a static route? Ok then.

Now how about $10 per month for a static IPv6 prefix, where RFC 6177 and 7010 both say they should be persistent and not dynamic? Being dynamic is literally harmful.

xpd

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#3266178 30-Jul-2024 07:57

OK, so we've got to the root cause of your query. You don't like the fact that 2D are charging you for a static.

XPD / Gavin

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#3266197 30-Jul-2024 09:17

Spaghetti: $10 a month is a bargain for a static route? Ok then.

Now how about $10 per month for a static IPv6 prefix, where RFC 6177 and 7010 both say they should be persistent and not dynamic? Being dynamic is literally harmful.

There are ISP's that will do this as a once-off cost. Sounds like you're expecting too much from a consumer ISP who have their prices published meaning no surprise...

For everything else - perhaps you should start up an ISP to see how easy it is?

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boosacnoodle

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#3266272 30-Jul-2024 10:52

KiwiSurfer:

Righto, $RSP can just have the call centre guy ssh into their DHCP machine and add in a reservation for a random IP address for you. No problem.

/s

You jest but when I used to work as a certain ISP that had a name which sounds like something breaking, this was exactly how it worked. God forbid you assigned the same Static IP to two customers at once.

nztim

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#3266276 30-Jul-2024 11:08

Spaghetti:

$10 a month is a bargain for a static route? Ok then.

They are not static routes they are done with BGP aka when a BNG authenticates a Static IP connection it starts advertising BGP

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

toejam316

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#3266283 30-Jul-2024 11:25

I feel like it's been a while since we've had one of these "This is my question, this is my answer, why am I right?" threads, it's been a good chuckle.

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Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

Mehrts

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#3266292 30-Jul-2024 11:57

@OP, instead of doubling down on your own (incorrect) thoughts on how things are done, how about taking the info on board that many people have reiterated and say "oh ok, thanks".

People are explaining the reasons for the extra cost, but you're ignoring what they're saying 🤷‍♂️

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