Depends on the access technology and environment. But usually there is not much choice to be made, by design. The cable or equivalent from the customer prem will go to exactly one aggregation location, and in that location, the choice of port generally doesn't matter. Among the potentially multiple cables or ports, they're all meant to be functionally the same. Maybe something is wrong with a cable or port, and that will hopefully come out in post-install testing, but there's not meant to be much of a decision to be made for commodity service like DSL or GPON (anything that'd use BNG). It's typically just going to be up to the last metre installer.
Metro ethernet services will be designed by an engineering team on a case-by-case basis, but they very rarely if ever use BNG.
> - Currently, the circuit where the user connects is arbitrarily decided by the demo user. In a real system with thousands of circuits, it'd be very difficult to properly assess which circuit the customer might connect to. When adding a new customer to a service, how does the operator decide, based on customer's location, which circuit to provide the service to ?
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, but port allocation is, depending on the ISP's deployment model, either going to be fixed at the time the infrastructure was built, or whoever is doing the last metre install will choose a random available port on the switch. The subscriber will be assigned to that port in the RADIUS or equivalent database, and the BNG will query the subscriber based on DHCP Option 82 port information added by the switch. You could also map the subscriber based on MAC address, but this doesn't really work unless you don't support customer provided equipment on their end.
Why would it be non-standard? USB-PD is almost completely decoupled from the rest of USB, and USB-C connector doesn't imply 'super speed' lanes are available. The only thing it really changes from an implementation perspective is that you don't have to route high speed lanes to the port, and don't need them to be available on your USB controller.
Doesn't seem to be very Apple-like to have two identical looking ports with different function, though.
They don't even need to know it is a thing that exists. The defaults (ie. the status quo of implied trust in the OS vendor) are fine for this type of user.
So you think it's okay for manufacturers to take advantage of users as long as they continue buying the locked-down devices? I disagree, and I think this argument is incredibly disingenuous. You could make the same specious argument about nearly any consumer protection or antitrust case. Just because consumers will put up with it, or because they are manipulated into believing it's good for them, doesn't mean they shouldn't be protected.
Furthermore, if you fundamentally allow this behaviour, the market forces are sure to push us to an end state where users simply have no control, and there are no viable alternatives. We are most of the way there already when it comes to smartphones. The cost of entry to this market (many $billions over many years, if you can even manage to gain meaningful marketshare at all), and the amount of money that is on the table (30% of the $billions transacted on a successful platform today, but who knows how far they push with a real stranglehold) means that it is virtually impossible for competition to solve this problem.
That was intended to be a generic 'device manufacturer', not calling out Google and Apple specifically. It's my device. I should control it, full stop. It should simply not be legal for a device manufacturer to lock me out of a device I own, post sale. In the past it wasn't _possible_, so we didn't need to worry about it. But now the tech is at the point where manufacturers can create digital locks which simply cannot be broken, and give them full control of devices they sell (ie. which they no longer own), which are being used in anti-consumer ways.
Considering market forces are against it, I believe the only practical way to accomplish this in the long term is for this to be a right that is enforced by legislation. I don't think it is even far from precedent surrounding first sale doctrine and things like Magnuson-Moss, that the user should be the ultimate one in control post-purchase, it just takes a different shape when we're talking about computing technology.
Ultimate control over devices you own should be a basic right. Apple's wanton abuse of users and developers via the control they have over their platform, and Google's nipping at their heels, should be evidence enough of that.
Fundamentally, it is a trust issue. Why should I be forced to trust Google or Apple has my best interests in mind (they don't)? That is not ensuring 'device integrity', it's ensuring that I am at the whims of a corporation which doesn't care about me and will leverage what it can to extract as much blood as it can from me. You can ensure 'device integrity' without putting any permanent trust in Google or Apple.
> Why should I pay costs for server uptime and maintenance for clients that I a) did not authorize and b) did not pay for me keeping up my servers and c) actually accept that a third party is getting money for providing said access to my servers?
Because you designed the system in such a way that interoperability was impossible without non-customers using your servers?
Metro ethernet services will be designed by an engineering team on a case-by-case basis, but they very rarely if ever use BNG.