I agree with Eric, but the problem is that even if you own your router (many residential users have provider-provided hardware), and run Tomato or DD-WRT, etc ... You have only one next hop, and zero control over that router.

So yes, don't invite Cisco into your living room, obviously. (Nor Cisco/Scientific Atlanta, but that's another discussion..!)

But you're still powerless and privacyless, sorry. Get a VPN box and tunnel everything (I do), but that's just kicking the can a few years down the road (less if you pick a cheap host).

Also, the bigger message from this fiasco is that Cisco is feeling revenue pressure even in their protective low margin consumer networking business. Cisco has never been a good consumer company, but they've just never cared enough to get "creative" before.

That's a bad bad sign for Cisco. Chambers, like Ballmer, has presided over ten-plus years of sideways, and this move seems desperate.

Run for the exits.