[146603] in North American Network Operators' Group
Query : seeking a (low cost & secure) turnkey plug-and-play appliance
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (A. Chase Turner)
Thu Nov 17 08:00:16 2011
From: "A. Chase Turner" <chase@stumpy.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 06:58:46 -0600
To: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
I am seeking a $100 turnkey micro hardware appliance to plug into a LAN =
hub (behind a consumer-level cable modem) whose only purpose in life is =
to send heartbeat (and simple quality of service metrics) to a =
pre-configured central aggregation service on the WAN.
Key requirement is the micro hardware appliance will be installed by =
non-technical elderly end-users -- so, it must be pre-configured and =
literally plug and play without need for the person installing the =
appliance to open a web browser to configure. And it must be a secure, =
good-reputation stand-alone hardware appliance ... because the heartbeat =
cannot / must not be a service installed on the end-user's computer =
where it becomes a support burden (e.g., did the end-user turn off their =
computer? Is their antivirus software blocking the outgoing heartbeat? =
That the end-user needs to enter a username/password/destination to =
enable the heartbeat, etc)
There is a commercial turnkey solution that meets all the requirements =
except one -- that the solution cannot exceed $100 per remote appliance =
:
http://www.myconnectionserver.com/learnmore/quality.html
Question to the list: do you know of an alternative hardware solution =
under $100 that would suffice -- and be of such quality that an =
incumbent internet service provider will not thumb their nose at me when =
I call in to report remote users are down based upon the loss of =
heartbeats from the remote users?
MOTIVATION FOR THE ABOVE
Ten elderly neighbors to my mother in a rural area suffer frequent =
internet outages from their one (and only) incumbent cable internet =
service provider. All of them have learned they will encounter one of =
the following responses :
"You are the only one reporting a problem"
OR
"We need three reports before we take action"
OR
"We fixed it. You need to re-boot your modem. (moments later after =
rebooting cable modem). It must be your computer that is the problem."
OR
"We know there is a problem. We'll send a crew out to repair the issue =
next week"
These 10 elderly neighbors are fuming ... and they recently formed a =
call tree -- so that when one person suffers an internet outage, they =
call other neighbors in the call tree to see if they too have an outage =
... and if so, each calls in an outage report (often 20 minutes of being =
placed on hold)
The call tree is working (somewhat) to improve accountability and =
response by the cable service provider ... but it is a waste of their =
time as there is no formal "record" of outage events to spur the =
provider to provide refunds for unscheduled service outages. Thus, I =
am seeking a turnkey quality of service micro appliance that automates =
(and documents) service outage notifications .. so as to allow me =
(living in a city and my being on a different internet service provider) =
to take on the role of calling the rural cable service provider and =
claim (with authority) that I know that 10 individuals systems (who have =
the heartbeat appliance installed) are down and that the cable service =
provider needs to fix the issue...
