Best of the ISP-Lists

Virtual Private Networks

Banning VPNs

Members of the ISP-DSL list discuss why and whether you would prevent customers from using Virtual Private Networks.

[August 22, 2000]

On the ISP-DSL list in August, DH referred to @Home's banning the use of VPNs on its service when he asked,

"Do all DSL and cable providers ban VPNs?"

A number of respondents felt such an action would be fully justified:

[DP explained] "Makes sense to me as an ISP. Everyone wants a T1 for $40 per month, but the current pricing is clearly based on the occasional home use model. Constant business use (i.e. running a VPN to the home office) goes beyond casual consumer use — it's business use and should probably cost more."

[VB added] "It's a bandwidth issue: people running VPNs are more likely to be doing large scale file sharing stuff like running applications from the remote machine, the sort of thing you might be normally doing over a LAN."

[SO agreed] "Everyone wants a high speed connection without incurring the costs to obtain one. And we all know too well real bandwidth costs real money. Glad to see this. Right on, @Home!"

Some felt there was no need to ban VPN:

[R responded] "Sounds kind of draconian to me; many people use VPNs to check their work email on weekends."

[TR contended] "Without a monopoly position, I'm not sure it is practical. Competitors don't charge extra for business or VPN use."

Others noted that the rule might not be too rigidly enforced:

[IC suggested] "I bet if you do use a VPN and don't tell them, they won't care. Bandwidth issues are a greater concern. Many xDSL providers like myself don't really care about clients running a VPN client (or a server for that matter); I just bill the client for usage beyond their specified daily/monthly data cap."

[JM added] "I'll bet few in the company even know what a VPN is — they'd be very hard pressed to detect whether anyone is using one."

 —End