New Netcomm Smart i Share 56k Modem/Hub/Server

NAcker writes: "LinuxWorld.com.au has an article about a new type of 56K modem that is also a four port ethernet hub. The Netcomm Smart i-Share 56 offers DHCP and firewall services by running embedded Linux! The article has photos of the "network in a box"." This is an interesting piece of kit, not as much of a stretch as those silly radio/flashlight hybrids from places like The Sharper Image. Now if only they would also make it a wireless access point, I would let my credit card heat up a little more. And besides, for those of us who submit to dialup, wouldn't it be nice to have a modem that runs the 2.0.38 kernel?

Comments

SMC has a far better option...

[fmaxwell]

SMC has their Barricade router. It has a four-port switch, a WAN ethernet port to connect to a cable modem or DSL, a serial port to connect to a modem (for connection sharing over modem), and a parallel port so that it can act as a print server. It has a firewall, packet forwarding, and can be fully configured with a web-based interface. It costs about $115 USD delivered to your doorstep. Add the cost of an external modem (if you don't have one) and you are right around $200.

So why would I pay almost $500 for one that cannot share anything but a modem and provides no print server? Because it has Linux in it? The SMC might, too, but they are smart enough not to tell that to every hacker that might be looking for an exploit!

Re:Blast from the past?

[SquadBoy]

No it is not overkill for a device like this. Linux is the only thing out there that scales down well enough with enough features to run on embedded systems and that you do not have to pay for. This is one of the things that makes devices like this possible. If they had to pay for another embedded OS the profit margin on something like this would go away. And keep in mind this is embedded Linux and it has already won in that marketplace. See the link to understand why.

Remember the rest of the world...

[Party Chief]

...Lest we forget that many countries don't have decent DSL or cable services and a *lot* of people are grateful to have 56k dialup for their SOHO or small business.

Many products that are taken for granted in the US (Linksys et al) are not necessarily available in certain countries due to Telco regulations (many countries with monopoly telecom operators force a modem manufacturer to comply with certain rules - this can be expensive).

So, this appears to be an Australian product. Kudos to them. Don't knock the design or functionality simply because you've transcended this method of connection years ago. Small companies would find the opportunity to share 56k dialup access with a few PC's very interesting in some less well connected locations.

Cable/DSL router/firewall with serial modem backup

[Fencepost]

From Asante.

It includes a 4-port 10/100 switch, a WAN-side Ethernet connection to go to the cable or DSL box, and a serial port that can be used to connect an external modem as a backup. It does NAT. It does DHCP. It firewalls. It includes three "groups" for different levels of port blocking. It includes a parallel port for printer sharing. It's web-configurable. It has beta IPSec support.

It's also cheap, with a list price of $200 and at least one place selling it for $150-160.

-- fencepost

Re:GREAT!!!

[JSBiff]

While I tend to agree with your sentiment, I also want to point out why people use (or perhaps in the past used) devices like this. And as other's point out, this is not a new idea. In 1998 I was working for a place that regularly installed similar devices at client sites. I don't remember the devices having a built-in hub, but they could be hooked up to a hub through an ethernet port, and had a built-in modem, DHCP server and NAT-ing router.

The company I worked at was a small VAR/System integrator in a Semi-rural area of Northeast Ohio. We sold and supported desktop computers and Novell networks to small businesses ( <500 employees) in an area with a radius of about 50 miles. The reason we installed these devices was that as the clients were very small companies, they had maybe two or three desktop PC's in their office that needed access to the internet. This was before cable modem/DSL technology (which I would say would be a more practical solution today, where available), ISDN cost a small fortune and didn't give much of a performance benefit, and a T1 cost a real lot of money (in the semi-rural areas where this company does consulting, I'm not even sure if T1's were available at the time, and even now they cost something like $1500/month because the clients are out in the boon-docks).

You might ask why not just give each PC their own modem and connection? Because then the company had to pay for extra dial-up accounts and extra phone lines (and these were not deep-pocketed companies), and the people in these offices that used the internet only made light use of it. Email, maybe an hour or two a day of doing business related work on the web (like checking prices from suppliers, or updating the company website, or electronically submitting government or insurance forms), and maybe a little bit of personal web surfing. Odds are, the various employees wouldn't all use the internet at the exact same time, and even if they did, the internet connection was mostly idle while they read the web-pages/email. So it worked out very economically and satisfactorily for the company to use one shared internet connection, and using an external device like this is more reliable than using Win98SE's internet connection sharing (which didn't even exist at the time). Although you could use *BSD/Linux, that would require a dedicated computer (which would be more expensive than one of these devices), and additionally the VAR I worked for didn't have any *nix experience and didn't want any ;-), and didn't require that any of the individual computers be on all the time.

Blast from the past?

[BrK]

This is not "news". Netgear and Linksys, along with several other companies have had 56K hubs/routers/dial-up managers for some time now. Just because this thing runs linux doesn't increase the "gee-whiz" factor, IMO. Linux is overall for a device like this anyway.

Re:Blast from the past?

[BrK]

What do you think was used before linux? Linux is simply *not* the only thing out there that scales down well enough... Devices like this existed YEARS ago, before linux was a common word, and before it was robust enough to be used in an application like this. As for the profit margin, with this device being roughly 2x the cost of it's competitors, I don't think they're doing much in the way of cost-cutting.

Changing the Terms of Service

[gimple]

To me the most interesting thing about these types of appliances is how they affect service providers' ways of doing business

When I started using Coyote Linux as a "router" connected to a cable modem, the terms of service for my provider clearly stated one machine per modem.

Recently, I went back to look at the Terms of Service and this provision was removed. I have to believe that the availability of access sharing devices and software was responsible for this change.

Wireless Hubs exist...

[kevlar]

DLink's 713 Wireless 11Mbps/10/100 Mbps router".

word.