You didn't take into account how much one had invested into his or her
current infrastructure based on Livingston. It's not only the boxes
themselves but also user/server software, procedures etc. For example,
I think all providers of similar equipment (Cisco, Telebit (former?),
Ascend) support RADIUS. But when it comes to refining the support it
turns out that here and there some little incompatibilities exist which
breaks uniform login procedure, or setup procdeure, or accounting
procedure.
We are currently evaluating NetBlazer 40i in configuration a la PM3
(30 modems/1 E1 PRI card/Ethernet) and it turned out to be *almost*
compatible with our current Livingston/RADIUS setup, but just *almost*.
And unless we can resolve minor incompatibilies we can't integrate
Netblazer into our current infrastructure.
Of course if it's an initial deployment the above doesn't matter.
Anyway I find the quoted price very competitive.
I completely agree with you that it would be great having more detailed
information about the product (with approx. prices) before it's available.
It would help us to evaluate buying it *now* and not in October (for
example E1 support is the major question).
Also, considering the price of software development for OSPF, BGP etc,
it would be very useful if Livingston introduce software packaging
for ComOS (like Cisco does for IOS). It's quite obvious there's no
need to support BGP for PM3 in high-density modem installations (where
they act as dial-in servers for 100 or more lines, OSPF is enough for
intra-AS routing), but it may be useful in other products.
-- Igor V. Semenyuk Internet: iga@sovam.com SOVAM Teleport Phone: +7 095 258 4170 Moscow, Russia Fax: +7 095 258 4133