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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel G. DeBusschere who wrote (3226)	3/26/1999 9:52:00 PM
From: ftth	Respond to of 12823

Hello Daniel, re<< An always on connection requires a static IP>> I don't believe that's always true. In fact DOCSIS requires the use of DHCP. A DHCP lease (actually 2) is part of the modem initialization process. The user has no choice in the matter (2 IP addresses are assigned actually: a management IP and a data IP). Even if the modem is never powered down, lease renewal (or update--which is different) takes place automatically, as do all sorts of other periodic management tasks that involve modem settings and the user is never aware of them. In the case of my (non-DOCSIS) cable modem, DHCP is the preferred scheme for new installations, but I choose to stick with my original static IP until they force me to use DHCP. Also, (from an earlier post) I'm not sure why a business would absolutely have to have a fixed IP address. Now dynamic domain names--that's a different story :O). Under DHCP, the DNS entries could be updated immediately and automatically following the DHCP-ACK by the client (similar to WINS). No one would know the difference (especially if the primary DNS server and the DHCP server are co-located). Still, it seems to be kind of senseless overhead for an always on connection and a shared, closed network. Come to think of it, seems kind of senseless for DSL too. You have a perpetual lease, you just do a lot of extra leg work to keep it. As more and more connections become "always on" the IP address preservation portion of DHCP seems to lose it's value. PPP allows for a dynamic IP address assignment scheme too, but there it makes more sense since they're juggling connections not bandwidth (at that point). dh