[ NNSquad ] Re: Visualizing your bandwidth...

[Vint Cerf <vint@google.com>]

anything that helps users understand their bandwidth consumption  
profiles might be quite useful - it would also provide an interesting  
statistical summary of usage patterns if the users of such a service  
were willing to allow their data to be aggregated.

v


On Nov 26, 2007, at 8:57 PM, Warren Kumari wrote:

> Hi,
>
> So, I was thinking that it might be useful for consumers to be able  
> to see how much bandwidth they are actually using -- sure there are  
> many consumer applications that will monitor the bandwidth that the  
> local machine is using, but monitoring the bandwidth that all of  
> the machines behind your NAT is somewhat trickier for most users.
>
> I was thinking of setting up a website where users can sign up  
> (they will need to be willing to share their provider and general  
> geographic location). The site will provide simple instructions for  
> configuring (RO!) SNMP access for most of the consumer NAT devices  
> (and each user will use a unique SNMP community). I will then start  
> polling the device and generating MRTG type graphs for the user.  
> The general location and provider information will also allow for  
> the generation of aggregate / average information that can be  
> publicly posted / shared (individual users graphs will only be  
> available to them...).
>
> Issues:
> [1]: Dynamic addresses -- when the user first signs up it is easy  
> enough to figure out their (external) address (assuming that they  
> sign up form hom)e. If they do not have a static address, they will  
> either need to use some sort of dynamic DNS system (DynDNS?) or run  
> a client app that tells the poller when their IP has changed.
>
> [2]: Allowing SNMP to their external interface -- AFAIK, many of  
> the consumer NAT devices already allow SNMP polling (many with the  
> community "public" (I just scanned my /24 and 14 devices answered  
> an SNMP poll with 'public' as the community!))
>
> [3]: Is this a stupid idea?
>
>
> Anyway, thoughts?
>
> W