Why can't ISP's split local/international?

headstrong said:
I understand that my modem makes a pppoe to the ISP's pppoe server
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Not quite. All ADSL connections in SA terminate to 'pppoe servers' that belong to Telkom. The make/model Telkom use is the Cisco 10000 series Edge Services Router, so you'll most likely hear them being referred to as an ESR.

While the ESR is the peer at the other end of your router's PPPoE session, it does not make descions regarding authentication, configuration, capping etc. It asks Radius servers, which Radius server depends on the realm of the login username (stuff after the @). Each of the ISPs run their own Radius servers so if your login is [email protected] then the ESR will go ask XYZ's Radius server what to do.

Once your account is granted access, your packets are routed into Telkom's ip network and further on to local and intl destinations. This is for SAIX based accounts.

If the realm belongs to an ISP that subscribes to a facility called IPConnect (predominatly IS), the packets are instead routed directly to that ISPs network via private interconnect links, from where the ISP routes them onward to the local or intl Internet however they see fit.

Coming back to local/intl counting, unfortunately Radius does not contain enough info to differentiate (& thus seperately count) local/intl traffic. This must be done deeper in the network core where the local/intl split is visible, and the only two (major) parties who would have this ability would be Telkom & IS.
 
oh so telkom has the pppoe servers...that I never knew....
hmmm ok now I see why its quite complicated to differentiate local from international...

Just out of interest...how much do those ESR's cost?
 
Time-Machine

Hi ,

Sorry to hash up all this old stuff from the time machine.

I am currently reading towards a CCNA so it was all very valuable -- but still trying hard to understand it all. ( Never seen an ESR )

AT a very basic level -- this is what I am reading

A1.) Traffic neeeds to be identified -- in order for it to be routed

A2.) It also needs to be indentified in order to be BILLED

A3.) Gathering this info from this HUGE stream of traffic is impossible ( within the constraints of hardware / software / equipment / the "GENIUS" level.

I do have to ask myself here though --- IF this is such an impossible task then HOW do the "spooks" come and interecept *YOUR* tiny little bitstream. I mean IF all this identifying is SOOOO hard :confused:
Click to expand...

B1.) WHY can TELKOM / IS / NEOTEL ( who-ever ) not offfer a FREE UNCAPPED LOCAL ONLY account :confused:

would this not make the "splitting" a LOT easier :confused: ie NO billing on the local routing "stream"

Be grateful for the "Gurus" comments

There seems to be such a HUGE demand for something like this -- witness ALL the workarounds -- that one would have thought that the "MARKET" would have worked out a "SOLUTION" :confused:
WHERE are you IC
Click to expand...

MW
 
Identifying a packet or stream is simple, the problem is that if you had to identify and collate data for every single bit that passed then you have a problem as what can keep up with this amount of information and work in splitting into different categories ie local or international, and remember this has to happen in real time with no speed impact for the customer.

Also remember the current implementation of Radius which does the client authentication and accounting details for every session just collects the number of bytes used in the session, so there is no mechanism in Radius to split local from international traffic.

Now remember Radius protocol was developed years ago with more than likely the lead developers being in the USA where data is cheap and so hence why develop something that is just not or never going to be required! Remember after all we can all do everything we need in 640k of RAM. ;)
 
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