Well, their loss. Too bad they didn't like the ISP pricing... The PM-3
is selling like mad and they don't have their piece. Cry me a river.
>engines. As signaled by Livingston's partnership with Lucent Technologies
>to acquire 56Kbps code when available from Lucent, Livingston doesn't
>really understand the key element to their PortMaster 3 product - the modem
Puh-leaze. This is so stupid. It is a matter of future proofing and time
to market. We could have done 56K modems on the existing DSPs but it would
have meant many months delay to code it ourselves. Partnering with Lucent
means being able to bring the technology to market faster.
If this were such an issue, why aren't they mentioning that Ascend, Cisco,
Xylo, etc all use Rockwell chipsets with Rockwell code.
>technology. There's also the integration and test aspects of incorporating
>new software into the modem cards and the internal expertise you need to
>accomplish that task reliably. The issue it comes down to is: U.S. Robotics
And we have all of that in spades, that you very much.
>owns the modem code and the intellectual property that goes with that
>ownership; Livingston does not.
Glass houses.
For a remote access server to run reliable and perform well it needs to have
a solid OS. USR does not have their own OS, they base theirs off of an OS
the license from this small company called Livingston. ;-) Where is their
internal expertise here? Frankly if what they've done to ComOS is any
indication, I don't want to see what they'd come up with on their own!
>No 33.6Kbps Modem Support Today
>Again, because Livingston does not take ownership of their modem
>technology, the PortMaster 3 modems only support 28.8K today. There is no
>support for 33.6K (V.34+) technology.
Officially, no. De facto - today you will get 33.6 downloads and 31.2
uploads.
>Hot Swappability Caveats
>Although the PortMaster 3 claims the modem cards are hot swappable,
>customers have to do so from the back of the unit. In contrast, for a Total
BFD. So put the rack in backwards and make the back the front. To swap
everything in a TC you need access to the FRONT AND BACK! It is mid-plane,
so you have to yank things from both ends.
>In short, the Total Control Hub is far more maintainable than the
>PortMaster 3.
If you have to routinely swap cards, you have bigger worries.
>In the PortMaster 3, system expandability and upgradability is limited
>solely to modem card updates. The gateway, router, management and trunk
>interface functions are all integral to the system and cannot be migrated
100% bullshit. Apparently this dickweed has never seen a PM-3, or he might
have noticed that the main board slides right out. Hmm... Seems just as
replaceable as a PRI card, or netserver card, from a TC to me.
I must just be dumb.
>enhanced router engines or the like. For example, the PortMaster 3 utilizes
>an Intel 486 microprocessor running at 66MHz for routing as well as main
>system processing. While this may be fine for today's system requirements,
>there is no method to upgrade this processor engine without replacing the
>PortMaster 3 case with whatever next generation product Livingston develops.
Complete bullshit.
1. The current CPU is more than enough for today's AND tomorrows requirements.
If he is used to the crappy code some other vendors provide, that needs the
faster CPU available to run well, then maybe he should learn about ComOS
before shooting off his mouth.
2. If there were ever a need to upgrade the processing power, the main board
is removeable.
> No Support for VPNs
>Internet Service Providers can support virtual private networks, or VPNs,
>to corporate customers looking to save the costs of dedicated trunks via a
>variety of tunneling protocols. The Total Control Hub supports one such
>tunneling protocol today, PPTP, with development underway to support the
>L2TP standard in the future. In contrast, the PortMaster 3 offers no VPN
>tunneling protocols today.
Correct. PPTP is a completely shitty protocol and we made the deliberate
choice to stay far, far away from it.
We're developing VPN based on the IETF standard IPsec - both for tunneling
and encryption. I haven't seen USR indicate that their doing it. L2TP
provides for NO data encryption, it only does tunneling. You need IPsec to
provide secure VPN. So, would you rather have an tunneling and encryption,
or tunneling?
>System reliability is clearly an issue. First, Livingston does not test to
>or support Bellcore's NEBS (Network Equipment Building System)
>requirements. NEBS criteria are used to evaluate a product's physical
Nope. Lots of cost with little point. Very few customers really care
if a box in the PM-3 class is NEBS compliant. Waste of time and money,
let USR do it if they want.
>grounding. These standards are most relevant to the telcos, but their
>fundamentals are of benefit to all customers by ensuring improved safety
>and reliability.
Does anyone really have a worry about being attacked by a PM-3? :-)
>Also, the PortMaster 3 does not support power supply redundancy nor can it
>support gateway redundancy; instead they rely on a single power unit and a
>single gateway respectively. In short, the PortMaster 3 is open to single
Gateway I take it is the ethernet. Well, we're looking at ethernet cards
as a possibility.
As for power supplies - the 48VDC model has dual redundant auto-sensing
power supplies for those who don't trust the single AC model.
>that reliability at a system level. In contrast, the Total Control Hub is
>modular in design and can thereby be configured to support system
>redundancies and thereby eliminate single points of failure.
For a lot more cost - and how many ISPs are putting multiple netserver
cards in a chassis just for redundancy?
>Finally, the common equipment on the PortMaster 3, such as trunk interfaces
>and management functions, are not serviceable. A failure of those
>components requires the customer to reinstall and then re-cable a
>PortMaster 3 in the event of failure. Even a fan failure will require this
>arduous task. Again, the modularity and total hot swappability of all
>system cards avoids this unnecessary work and down-time.
All system cards in the PM-3 are swap able - modems are hot swapable. I'd
like to see you hot swap the NetServer card without bringing down the
connections. :-) Or the T1/PRI interface card.
>ethernet. With frame relay in the PortMaster 3, the customer must consume
>one of the only two T1/E1 ports, thereby reducing total system channel
Today yes, tomorrow no. WAN cards are coming.
> Livingston Customer Service and Commitment Issues
>Livingston is a privately held corporation who first started to get into
>the remote access market in 1990. In addition, their current sales channel
>is direct and they claim to service over 1,500 ISP's. One has to wonder
>about the level of customer service and commitment from a small independent
>company looking to support them with a small direct sales and service staff.
Please, this is complete FUD, dumbass, marketing bullshit.
Who provides free support and upgrades? Who has a faster response time for
feature requests? Who supports real routing protocols like OSPF and BGP?
And who has turned an elegant ComOS into a mass of hacked, semi-working
code? ;-)
>Network management for the PortMaster 3 is limited to PMconsole,
>proprietary Livingston management utility software used to configure and
PMconsole, the command line, and now greatly expanded SNMP support - with
more coming in the SNMP department.
>available for the MS-Windows, Sun Sparc, DECstation, IBM RS/6000 and HP9000
Linux, BSD/OS, SunOS, Solaris, Solaris/X86, HP/UX, AIX, OSF-1, IRIX, Win95,
and WinNT.
And soon in Java - we were demonstrating PMconsole in Java at InterOp for
those who missed it.
>platforms. Because PMconsole does not support the more ubiquitous
>management and accounting utilities like HP OpenView and SunNet Manager,
>the PortMaster 3 limits the options for the network operators and the
>environments under which they can manage the Livingston system.
Sure...
>Another shortcoming is the PortMaster 3's current inability to support
>modem status via the GUI. This clearly hinders performance monitoring and
Temporary issue. It'll be there. It is in the Java version now, probably
in the next rev of the current model.
>Finally, the PortMaster 3 lacks auto response capabilities, a script
>management feature supported by the Total Control Hub which allows the
>system to be configured to automatically respond to system-detected network
>problems without operator intervention.
True, but no one seems to care. I've never seen it asked for.
>No EdgeServer
>The ability of the PortMaster 3 to support Level II EdgeServer capabilities
>is also lacking. This is an issue for corporate customers or service
>providers who support an NT operating environment and are looking to
>integrate RAS capabilities.
Personally I think this is stupid. Putting an NT server IN THE NAS just
strikes me as dumb. Keep NT on a REAL server, not some weak-ass card, and
use things like RADIUS to support your NAS group. End of friggin story.
>According to a Livingston note on the PortMaster 3, they indicate that the
>product currently does not support dial-up signaling over channelized T1.
Probably an old appnote - we all know the truth. In open beta now and
working well, expected to be in full release soon.
AND we can do 56K ISDN DOSBS calls over channelized T1 - I've never heard
of the USR TC being able to do ISDN without a PRI.
>Although it is not clear exactly what that means, it sounds like a
If it isn't clear to him what it meant, then this guy is hopeless.
>No support for analog dial-up
Yep. And quite deliberate. No support for POTS completely by design.
Buy a PM-2 - with the TC you would need to replace the POTS cards with
digital cards too.
> No front panel indicators to help with system troubleshooting
The PM is very, very simple. I think the TCs slew of LEDs is indicative
of the kind of feedback you need from it to keep it running.
>The lack of front panel indicators on the PortMaster 3 will present some
>real problems for site installers and engineers looking to isolate system
>problems without first accessing the system management interface. Front
>panel LEDs on the Total Control Hub provide a wealth of information at a
Yeah right. Each of the modems has little LEDs - personally I think it
is a waste of components and it does add cost to wire all those buggers in
there. The PM-3's case is kept simple deliberately to keep the sheet metal
fab costs down. It also eliminates any need to have to align the LEDs with
holes on the front panel, etc. Everything is confined to one face of the
unit. And if it is that important, just install it with that face facing
out.
>Email: ggenge@capella.com Web page http://www.agt.net/public/capella/
I find it funny that *I* have my own domain, and a so-called technology
provider has their webpage on some other server.
I think I'll CC greg on this. Maybe there is a slim hope he'll learn
something.
I'd encourage anyone else to write to him to set him straight too.
-MZ
-- Livingston Enterprises - Chair, Department of Interstitial Affairs Phone: 800-458-9966 510-737-2100 FAX: 510-737-2110 megazone@livingston.com For support requests: support@livingston.com <http://www.livingston.com/> Snail mail: 4464 Willow Road, Pleasanton, CA 94588