Argonne has been a center for battery research and testing going back to 1976 . They have teams of materials scientists, chemists and physicists who have been working on various aspects of improving battery systems for many years, with a lot of published researched and patents. They also has one of the top 5 supercomputers in the world on-site, an entire center devoted to nanotechnology research, the biggest x-ray source around (for materials property research), and all sorts of other resources that make this more than "just another place" to do this work.
This grant is all about combining and focusing the efforts of all sorts of other public institutions and private manufacturers, with leadership from what is truly a "critical mass" of smart folks who work at the Argonne campus.
It is not likely to be any one "magic bullet" but lots of little improvements in each aspect of battery technology, gaining a percent or two here, a few more percent there, that when combined together will result in impressive gains. You know, like... science.
The cable companies are not entirely to blame for the high prices and lack of viewing options.
The real reason CATV bills are too high is because of the content companies, studios, and the local TV stations. All of their contracts compel the cable operator to pick up not just one or two channels, but entire "packages" of channels, sometimes 10 or more, in order to get the channel you really want to carry. Often times, the cable operate MUST provide a channel to every single subscriber, or the studio won't let them have it at all. The contracts also have provisions about where the channels can be placed in the channel lineup. You also have channels that only a small number of customers are interested in (like certain premium sports channels or packages), but the CATV operator is contractually forced into providing to ALL customers, and into paying a hefty fee (above $3/month per customer) for a single channel.
I have seen small market TV stations asking for over a $1/month per subscriber for the privilege of the CATV operator carrying the exact same programming they broadcast over the air for free.
Lastly, the content providers usually want to lock the CATV companies into multiple year contacts, with price escalations. They are also putting language into the contracts specifically to forbid any sort of IP network based content distribution to the end customer.
So, does Charter have coax on the road? Is the only thing holding you back the cost of getting the coax down the driveway?
Here's a solution that is cheap and wrong, but it works.
You know how construction sites have a small pole (usually a 6x6 10 foot beam the ground) with a plywood backboard for electrical and phones? You can get a coax CATV drop done to a "work site" demarc. They may say no initially, but you can do it.
You could create your own "construction site" temporary service pole near the road, within easy distance of an existing utility pole. Then get cable Internet service delivered to your "construction site", along with an electrical meter and small electrical panel (get the electrical first). It is easiest if you own the land near the pole, but you can get an easement in writing if needed from a neighbor, or just have the neighbor order it if you know them well.
Get a NEMA rated outdoor enclosure box to put the cable modem into, and power, and big enough to also hold some sort of old SDSL or VDSL modem (as part of a back-to-back pair). The VSDL modem will just be a straight ethernet bridge (plug the cable modem ethernet into the modem's ethernet, cross-over if needed). Run outdoor rated, gel filled Cat. 5 ethernet cable from your "construction site" along the driveway or in the woods. You can get 1000' boxes of this for about $130. More than 1000 feet? fine, get more boxes and splice the cable together (either yourself with tape or buy a real weather proof telephone splice kit for about $25 at Home Depot). Bring the Cat. 5 into the house, and hook up the other VDSL modem in the back-to-back pair, and then connect to your firewall or PC. The VDSL gear should train up at at least 5Mbit of service, maybe more (depends on distance). May not be as fast as the cable modem, but better than nothing.
You don't have the bury the Cat 5 or anything. You can just lay it on the ground, in places where it is not going to get driven over, at the edge of the woods and the driveway. The outdoor gel filled cable is UV resistant and can handle being totally under water without issue. This cable will last you at least 5 years, maybe 15 -- as long as your splices are good.
It might cost $500 in total for the materials (NEMA box, cable), the construction demarc pole, and a couple of used VDSL or SDSL modems (check ebay). Plus the cost of the electrical install, and the monthly electrical bill (likely minimum billing) and the CATV cost. But you will have broadband, and the total cost will probably be around $100/month.
Another variation on this is to get the service installed at a neighbor's house the abuts your property, and just run the cable there.
Actually, Maine has a extremely advanced telecom infrastructure, especially given the low population density and sheer size of the state. In part, this is due to the legacy of having some very large call centers located in Maine in the past (MBNA, now Bank of America) and one of the more CLEC friendly public utilities commissions. And historically, Maine had more independent, private telephone companies than any place else in the US. Maine was the first state in the country to have every single public school and library Internet connected (56k or T1), starting in 1996, which is well over 1200 locations. Many of the high schools now have T3s and video classroom conferencing capability between each other and to the state University system.
In most towns over 10,000 people, there two or more competing broadband choices, and that doesn't just mean the ILEC (was Verizon, now Fairpoint) and a cable company. There are a number of regional CLECs providing DSL and dialtone services, and several rural areas with wireless ISPs that compete with FairPoint. The prices are not as low as you would find in MA or NY or CA, but it is available.
There is even one CLEC that has built their own fiber optic network in a Verizon/FairPoint city (Lewiston) that also has a strong cable company (Time Warner) and offers triple-play (voice/video/data) residential and business service and is expanding to two more cities in the state in the next year. You can purchase "lit service" multimegabit service in most of the cities, and leased dark fiber in the major areas, if you have the need and the budget.
As an example, you can get 10Mbit/sec of business class Internet pipe (fiber delivered) in the business districts of most central Maine cities from no less than 3 different carriers for about $1200/month. Typical residential DSL is about $40 for 2 Mbits.
That all said, there are still large sections of the state, in the towns and villages with less than a few thousand people, where you cannot get broadband at all, or you have only a single option. The state has recently setup a special program called ConnectME, funded by a telecom tax, to bring broadband to even the most rural of areas.
(yes, I live here. There is much that is still backward about Maine, but telecom ain't it.)
From a networking point of view PLATO did some interesting stuff.
NovaNET, the successor PLATO system designed by CERL at UIUC to replace the aging CDC Cybers, did a national network using a T1 speed satellite system for the downstream path and a 56k long haul leased line as the return path as a solution for remote sites. This was in 1986 - 1987, mind you. This allowed other universities and places like high schools to gain access to PLATO without having to own one of their own, or use long-haul T1s, which were too expensive.
And then they added TCP/IP support, and eventually the satellite was no longer needed to support remote sites with the Internet.
I wish I knew more of the technical details to be able to share them. But it was pretty damm impressive stuff -- hacking and extending a system that originally only had 2400 bps terminals to support TCP/IP connected PCs over ethernet, at high speeds.
Oh, and then there is the CDC Cyber emulator that was written in mid 1990s to replace the aging custom built Zephyr machines, that were built around 1986 as well, to replace early 1970s Cybers. The system still exists. Wish I could get my hands on a copy of the emulator and a system image.
dude... I'm a manager, with people working under me, an administrative assistant, etc. and I use Debian.
Prefer it, even, over RedHat.
something like this just happened to a client
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NCR Patents the Internet
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· Score: 2, Interesting
A client of ours just had a very similar thing happen to them, with Divine's supposed patent on shopping cart technology, which is also insane.
unfortunately, they had to settle eventually to get back to business. We did put together a website to try to help fight Divine, and intend to continue the effort ourselves. And expect to get targeted by divine as well.
scum sucking lawyers are making most of the money off of these things, not the companies who hold the patents.
This email exchange, between the now world famous Xach (a former cow-orker at the dearly departed MINT.NET) and someone claiming to be from Togo, must rank among the all time best SPAM exchanges. No, really -- Read and prepare to ROFL.
For those who might be wondering what PLATO was, it was a system far ahead of its time. Kind of a preview of the world wide web in the 1970's.
Yeah, PLATO and NovaNET were way ahead of their time, in many ways. I count myself fortunate to have had a chance to "be there" while it was still in its prime.
The original mainframes that ran PLATO are long gone, as far as I know. NovaNET was an attempt by UIUC to rejuvenate PLATO in the late 1980s, using custom designed hardware that implimented the Cyber instruction set. The system had a unique communications infrastructure, using hybrid one-way satellite/land-line return data delivery system to connect customers nationally. This allowed small sites to enjoy the power of PLATO without having to buy a CDC system of their own. It was amazingly responsive, despite the use of the satellite link. That system was later replaced by Internet connections and NovaNET running under emulation on Sun server hardware. The system is now owned by NCS/Pearson, and is is still being used by some K12/adult education sites. But its days are definately numbered.
One interesting thing about PLATO systems is that the sense of user community was amazing. I think only a few on-line communities have ever reached the level of the PLATO systems (perhaps the WELL and some MU*s). The level of interactivty and features on the system went beyond what most people get on the 'net these days (if you don't count all of the web cams and p0rn). You could chat live with someone else, and actually see each individual key presses -- and get flustered by your inablity to type fast enough to keep up someone. Your could share your entire terminal screen with someone else to show what you were doing, or if you were having a problem. Help desk support staff were very knowledgable and usually responded personally within a few minutes to any request. There were discussion notesfiles on almost every topic. The user community was very active.
I really don't think that instant messages or web boards give you the same kind of feel.
And finally, the games were pretty impressive for the era. I personally lost about 5000 hours of my life to Avatar. (yes, really, 5000 hours -- the system keeps a log of your total usage) Nothing else was like it at the time, being able to play a dungeon kill-the-monsters game in a crude semi-3D enviroment while interacting in the game with 50 other people, on a 2400 bps dialup. And loving every minute of it.
Check out Western Multiplex's line of T1-T3 point-to-point solutions. You should be able to get 8 T1s over a 45 mile link. I know that their DS-3 (T3, 45Mbit full duplex) gear is around $18,000 per end, but it doesn't have the range that you need, because of the free space loss.
You will need a clear fresnel zone of around 300 feet (back of the envelope figures) above the tallest obstruction in the path. So you are probably talking about a 400+ foot tower, or something like a 150 foot tower on a 300 foot hillside (cheaper).
A 45 mile link will be hard to align properly, you will want to hire professionals. Cell phone companies use this kind of gear and go these distances regularly, for their cell-to-cell backhauls.
Ok, I just gotta comment on the whole "Maine is a backwater" comment series. I was born in Maine and have spent most of my life here.
Sure, when I was growing up, I desperately wanted to leave the state as soon as possible, as there were _no_ good jobs for technically minded bright people to be had. This has changed a lot in the last 10 years.
Portland, Maine is becoming a bit of a technology center, with many software companies and web designers, a semiconductor fab facility, and telecomm carriers running fiber rings around the city. As a state, Maine was one of the first to mandate high speed Internet access for all schools and libraries, starting in 1995. Most high schools in the state are now busy installing ATM DS3s for video conferencing and data, thanks to a bond issue passed a few years ago. And our progressive Governor King is trying to setup a program to kick-start wireless networking and thin-client computing in education by giving every 7th grader a "web pad" kind of device.
Technology jobs are still not plentiful, and the salaries are certainly 20-60% less than what you can make in a major metro area. But so are some of the expenses (you can rent an entire 3 bedroom house on several acres of land for less than $600/month)
Bangor was recently rated as #1 in the Places Rated Almanac for towns under 100,000 people, and is recognized as one of the top 20 places in the US to raise a family. With the University of Maine's flagship campus in nearby Orono (around 10,000 students), there are more cultural opporunties than you would expect for a town of its size.
No, it doesn't offer anything like the cultural experiences of Boston, New York City, or LA. But it also lacks a lot of the negatives of those places, too. Violent crime is rare enough here that it is big news when it happens at all, and you don't have to worry about your car getting stolen, even if you leave the keys in it and the engine running while you duck into the corner store on the way home.
There is the issue of the winter season being too frigging cold most of the time, and getting a lot of snow. But the skiing and snow mobiling is really good, if you are into that sort of thing (I'm not).
As another person commented, come up here during July or August and spend a week along the coast or hiking the AT. You'll change your mind.
The people have spoken? The people are pretty evenly divided on this issue. And with all of the lawsuits and count-lawsuits, I don't think we will see the end of this until the Electoral College votes. And maybe not even then -- wouldn't it be a hoot if one of the electors change their vote from Bush or Gore to Nader, and we ended up without anyone having the 270 required to win?
The only ray of light in this entire process is perhaps the hope that some sort of standardization of voting proceedures and machinery will happen nationwide
This is sort like when you keep telling your boss that you need to invest in new technology because it is broken (underpowered, unreliable, etc.), and they keep saying "no", until the day that their business is seriously affected by the old systems in place (computer dies, the backup system doesn't work anymore, etc.).
Maybe it will finally become a priority to spend some money to upgrade to optical scan technology in those places that are still dealing with punched cards and hanging chads.
Unfortunately, I can also see local election boards saying "wow, we will never have an election that close again, so now we don't have to worry about it".
Damm. I hate it when I come into a discussion late.
I have read most of the comments thus far and I am struck by how negative and uninformed most of them have been, which is really an unusual combination for Slashdot (usually if they are negative at least people know what they are talking about!;-P ). And it seems that only the most negative ones are being moderated up. So here is my RANTMODE=1 on this topic.
I am a Maine resident, and I am pretty familiar with Gov. King's laptop plan. I am a freelance techie (sysadmin/network hacker), but I am also heavily involved in K12 education. A lot of my customers are school systems, and in the past I have been a K12 school district technology coordinator, a technology consultant for the Maine State Dept. of Ed., and done some substitute teaching and taught several adult education courses. So I think I can lay claim to having a few clues about this stuff.
Yes, the plan has some serious drawbacks. It was developed almost entirely in a top-down fashion. A lot of the details were not worked out until questions surfaced after the announcement, and many other details are still unresolved. The Gov. and his staff did not try to get the backing of the state's K12 technology professionals and teachers until afterwards.
Training *is* part of the plan, but not in the same "pot of money". The plan is for the State Dept. of Education to spend $1mil/year on staff development for teachers out of their regular budget. Yes, they should be spending more than that, but it isn't so bad since we are a small state (1.2 million total population). One of the good features of the plan is that is setup as an endowment -- only the interest on the $50 million fund would be used to provide the equipment on an ongoing basis. If the program doesn't work out, the money is still there to be spent elsewhere.
Still, I think the idea (especially the on-going funding aspect) is worth pursuing, with some broader oversight and input from the educational community.
I have noticed that people seem to get all hung up on the word "laptop", and immediately think of a big, expensive and fragile device. Laptop was a poor choice of words by the people in the governor's office to get a cutesy slogan ("lunchboxes to laptops").
Think "thin client webpad" instead.
Also think about what sort of technology might be available as "commercial off the shelf" or nearly-COTS soon, and how prices will decline in the next two years -- the program really isn't going to start until fall of 2002.
I am envisioning something like that looks like these (color webpads with a transmeta CPU), but with flash storage, wireless 802.11b ethernet, USB ports, and some sort of keyboard/screen cover attachment. Running linux, of course. This seems reasonable for $400-450/each, if you were going to be buying 18,000 of them at once.
The whole project must be done with wireless networking. Maine may lead the nation in having nearly 100% of all schools and public libraries connected to the Internet (with at least a 56k Frame Relay connection), but most buildings still don't have any network wiring outside of a few labs or office areas. Building cabling is still pretty expensive (minimum of $100/port to do it right). Wireless can get the job done a lot cheaper. It also enables the devices to be used anywhere, without any cords, which is a real enabler.
What I envision is that most of the real software and content/reference material would be on central network server (a mix of HTTP based and PDF-type resources, along with remote X or ICA sesssions for running some software packages). The student's work and information (email, notes, etc.) would be synced onto the server every time they were in the building, where it would be backed up in case they break their unit and need a replacement.
I think having some sort of information appliance like this available to all students (and teachers!) in a school setting could be a tremendous tool for learning. -- if used properly. Imagine being able to share test probe data from lab equipment in a science class with everyone at once, collect field data, etc. Even kids in Jr. HS can do meaningful real-world science, especially with the appropriate software.
Forget all that advanced learning stuff for a minute -- I think most of you forget that the average teacher doesn't have an email account, let alone one that they can access from their desk in their own classroom. How well could you do your job if you could only read your email for 10 minutes a day and had a to travel to a special room in your building to do it? Oh, and also remember that this applies to telephones too. Imagine a school where everyone has email -- students, teachers, and administrators -- and they use it. I have seen first hand how something as simple and basic as an email account for everyone in the building (and the equipment to use it) can have a profound change on the culture of the school, and improve the communication all around. It isn't the highest and best use of the technology, but it sure beats paper cubbyhole mailboxes and reams of paper killed every time the morning announcements are distributed.
Here is another thing -- people complain that textbooks are expensive and often out of date. It can cost between $50-100+ for a single copy of a science or history book that might be outdated in two years, but generally won't be replaced for 10+ years. If you look at the number of text books that the average college track high school kid will need during his/her HS career, you are talking about many hundreds of $ and dozens of pounds worth of text books (yes, they are reused several times over many years). Some of those books could be replaced with electronic versions, especially if the webpad device had a high quality display. Doesn't anyone remember having so many textbooks that is was almost impossible to shoulder your fully loaded book bag without incurring a muscle injury?
Some have stated that the money would be better spent on repairing buildings, higher teacher pay, more textbooks etc. I don't disagree that those needs are there. But, a lot of money is already spent in all of those areas -- not adequate, but at least the bulk of the needs are being met. Technology in education is not generally being funded at a level that leads to successful projects that have an impact on learning.
Most schools spend FAR more money on custodians and school buses than they spend on technology and curriculum integration. This is not to say that buses and custodial services actually get all of the money they need either, but they are generally funded at a multiple of the per capita technology and curriculum budgets.
Blah. I'm tired now. Looks like the latest budget deal hammered out between the state legistature and the Governor has reduced the fund to $30 million and it is now a general "technology for education" fund. At least it is a start.
The CD BlastIt! with a built in 25GB hard drive for storage of MP3s. Sells for $595. From Corporate Systems Center, who specializes in duplication equipment these days.
FWIW, I believe you can also slap a CSU/DSU and router on each end and have a "T1".
Yup, you sure can -- up to a limit of around 3500 feet, on 24 awg wire (at least, this has been my experience). If you use a heavier gauge of wire it will go further.
Of course, DSL routers are much less expensive than a Cisco 1600 and CSU/DSU.
True, but a new 1600 is overkill for something like a homebrew project anyway.
You can get used T1 CSU/DSUs (no frills units) for about $200 on eBay often, and then get a pair of used old Cisco routers (like a CGS/MGS or even an IGS) for between $100-150 each. Total cost around $600-800, unless you happen to have some old T1 capable routers sitting around (you'd be surprised at the sort of equipment that is being pulled out of service and scraped these days).
Yes, the older routers are not as fast, etc. etc. but for a simple end-point setup with a small number of users, even the 10 year old gear can keep up without any problems.
If one was right near a telco CO, you could run a small/cheap/hobby limited range ISP operation this way -- pick up an old AGS+ with scads of serial and ethernet ports for maybe $400 for the central site. They can still pump a respectable amount of data -- the AGS+ was often used as the network core router for entire campus or corporate networks "back in the day" (like with 12 ethernet ports, 8 T1s, and two FDDI ports).
this also works with T1 CSU/DSUs
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I have used SDSL or HDSL equipment on both private and telco dry pairs in several installations. Usually, it just fires right up -- especially if one of the end points is literally across the street from the CO! I have used both PairGain and Tut Systems equipment. The PairGain stuff is nicer, but it is way more expensive.
Some may be surprised to know that you can also do this sort of thing with standard T1 CSU/DSU units, wired up in a cross-over fashion. Set the "line build out" setting to the maximum, and as long as the cabling is less than ~3500 feet, it will work. If the line is of marginal quality you will see some framing and CRC errors. But, it is usually nothing much worse than an average point-to-point telco T1. You can get used CSU/DSUs and routers cheaper than xDSL gear at the moment, too. This also has the advantage of letting you combine voice and data on that "circuit", if you are trying to connect two business locations together as cheaply as possible.
SDSL will give you 2MBit/second on a single pair of dry copper. HDSL gives you 768kbit/second on a single pair of copper, which can be combined for a 4 wire connection at 1.5Mbit/second (common with PairGain stuff).
Another little secret of the telcos is that these days almost all "T1" type circuits (including frame relay ports and ISDN PRIs) are actually delivered to you on PairGain or Paradyne type HDSL equipment. These are the so called "smart jacks", the white/gray boxes that you plug your CSU/DSU into on your end. The telco doesn't have to put all of that time into engineering a true "repeatered T1" anymore -- they can just grab some pairs and fire up the HDSL and turn up a T1 circuit in a matter of hours instead of days or weeks. They do this all of the time for their overpriced dedicated circuits, but for some reason they have to spend years "trialing" DSL for mass consumer use. uh-huh.
I work with a company that has one of these, and I have played with it a little bit. Pretty darn cool setup. They run mostly from RAM. The phone system has dual linux boxes (with some arbiting code) for fault tolerance -- if the primary linux box goes down, the secondary box picks up automatically, without dropping any calls in progress.
They can do all kinds of phone system statistics and reporting, using MySQL as a backend for the data. They have a full featured ACD as well. They have support for many flavors of CTI, and I have seen some pretty nifty CSTA based CTI stuff that works with this equipment (they use Delphi for software development).
From what I understand they will shortly have available email, text messaging, and voice over IP as available features, all routed/controlled by the linux based switch. For the next generation call center...
I did my first post-Y2K service call today; a place that had not upgraded from an old DOS version of Quicken that a secretary was using for accounting for a petty cash/reimbusement account. The DOS version just wasn't able to print checks in year 2000.
The problem was easily fixed with a copy of Quicken 2000 and an import of the data from the old version. 3 hours billable time, most of spent getting their old form feed checks to align properly with the new software.
This is exactly the sort of Y2K stuff I expected to see from small shops and small businesses. Most small shops only installed Microsoft Y2K updates, if they did anything at all.
They will just keep running what they have until it gives them problems, then they will fix it.
This is only mildly applicable to your question since it isn't for Solaris, but it is all I have to offer.
I spent a fair amount of time looking at RAID 5 solutions this past summer for a client. Both external and internal, for Linux. Tried several different controller card brands and drive configurations, did a lot of reading, and bugged a lot of vendors.
You really should try to test your options and all of the configuration combinations using something like Bonnie, on a machine with a simular configuration to your target server. Make sure that your Bonnie test file size is at least twice physical RAM, to eliminate the effects of RAM and controller caching on the results.
I found that using 6 drives in a RAID 5 config was a LOT faster than 5 drives, most of the time. In fact, 3 drives in an array was faster than 5 in some cases. I think it has to do with the way the controller cards were calculating the distributed parity, and perhaps also due to things the driver was doing. 4 drives usually wasn't much better than 3, either.
Stripe sizes for the array can also make a big difference. 32k vs 128k, etc. Larger strips sizes are usually better for I/O speed, but you may find for email that having a higher number of random seek transactions per second is better than raw speed.
I did not get a chance to do any hard testing of multiple channel configurations with these cards. I suspect that splitting the I/O onto multiple channels would be a win.
IMHO, you definately want a i960 based board or system, with the fastest CPU you can find on them. I noticed a signifigant difference between boards with the 33Mhz part vs. the 66Mhz part.
FYI for others: for controllers, the AMI MegaRAID (alias Dell's PERC2/SC) just blows chunks. Older non-LVD, non-raid SCSI systems can run rings around it, at least on write speed.
It has been my experience that the write speed on a RAID 5 system is generally only a fraction of the reading speed, like 1/4th to 1/2. For a quick and stupid test, do something like 'time cat/proc/kcore >/tmp/kcore' and do the math for MB/second.
oh, and my current favorite card is the DPT Millenium V controller, using it in several systems in various places for the last 3 or 4 months. Here are some Bonnie results for a system with a DPT with 6x 7200 RPM drives, all on the same channel (internal) Linux kernel 2.2.10, dual P3 500Mhz:
In the Dallas area, I have heard the argument that it is a technical issue. The way cable works, being a shared access medium, prevents them from splitting up their network for different access providers. The problems with the CLECs is that different companies have to share their pools of telephone numbers, which they were not originally set up to do. IP addresses could be shared in similar ways between AT&T, and a local ISP. I don't even think they would have to do anything as complicated as that, just provide PVCs over ATM into the neighborhood.
This is exactly how it COULD be done to support more than one ISP on the cable TV network. Or different IP addresses could be assigned to different customers of the competing ISPs, via DHCP.
Some of the very first cable modem products on the market (LanCity, back in '94-'96) were specifically designed to support multiple ISPs on a single CATV network! In their network subscriber management application for the CATV company, they had database entries for which ISP a customer was subscribed to. The CATV provider could define multiple ISPs, and assign new customers to any of them. LanCity had the notion that the local CATV company would only supply point-to-point transport services (for a fee) and then a seperate ISP would provide Internet connectivity, bandwidth, tech support, and so on. Not to say that the CATV company couldn't have a subsidary or a sister company that was also an ISP...
There are no technical reasons why open and competing access can't work on cable networks. When I was involved in some cable modem deployment work 4 years ago, this was technicially possible even then, when the cable modems were mostly based on ethernet and MAC layer protocols (VLANs were possible). Today, it seems that a lot of the systems are PVC or SVC based using ATM to a head-end switch. Should be even easier to keep traffic seperated between providers and customers.
Slashdot Mirror
I like that plan. I wish you well. Remember always that you are now a steward of a couple of big pieces of internet history and lore.
Argonne has been a center for battery research and testing going back to 1976 . They have teams of materials scientists, chemists and physicists who have been working on various aspects of improving battery systems for many years, with a lot of published researched and patents. They also has one of the top 5 supercomputers in the world on-site, an entire center devoted to nanotechnology research, the biggest x-ray source around (for materials property research), and all sorts of other resources that make this more than "just another place" to do this work.
This grant is all about combining and focusing the efforts of all sorts of other public institutions and private manufacturers, with leadership from what is truly a "critical mass" of smart folks who work at the Argonne campus.
It is not likely to be any one "magic bullet" but lots of little improvements in each aspect of battery technology, gaining a percent or two here, a few more percent there, that when combined together will result in impressive gains. You know, like... science.
The cable companies are not entirely to blame for the high prices and lack of viewing options.
The real reason CATV bills are too high is because of the content companies, studios, and the local TV stations. All of their contracts compel the cable operator to pick up not just one or two channels, but entire "packages" of channels, sometimes 10 or more, in order to get the channel you really want to carry. Often times, the cable operate MUST provide a channel to every single subscriber, or the studio won't let them have it at all. The contracts also have provisions about where the channels can be placed in the channel lineup. You also have channels that only a small number of customers are interested in (like certain premium sports channels or packages), but the CATV operator is contractually forced into providing to ALL customers, and into paying a hefty fee (above $3/month per customer) for a single channel.
I have seen small market TV stations asking for over a $1/month per subscriber for the privilege of the CATV operator carrying the exact same programming they broadcast over the air for free.
Lastly, the content providers usually want to lock the CATV companies into multiple year contacts, with price escalations. They are also putting language into the contracts specifically to forbid any sort of IP network based content distribution to the end customer.
You have to be better at not taking "no" for an answer. :-)
They can do it. They just have to be persuaded. Or you can get a physical address for your construction site from your town/county/etc.
So, does Charter have coax on the road? Is the only thing holding you back the cost of getting the coax down the driveway?
Here's a solution that is cheap and wrong, but it works.
You know how construction sites have a small pole (usually a 6x6 10 foot beam the ground) with a plywood backboard for electrical and phones?
You can get a coax CATV drop done to a "work site" demarc. They may say no initially, but you can do it.
You could create your own "construction site" temporary service pole near the road, within easy distance of an existing utility pole. Then get cable Internet service delivered to your "construction site", along with an electrical meter and small electrical panel (get the electrical first). It is easiest if you own the land near the pole, but you can get an easement in writing if needed from a neighbor, or just have the neighbor order it if you know them well.
Get a NEMA rated outdoor enclosure box to put the cable modem into, and power, and big enough to also hold some sort of old SDSL or VDSL modem (as part of a back-to-back pair). The VSDL modem will just be a straight ethernet bridge (plug the cable modem ethernet into the modem's ethernet, cross-over if needed). Run outdoor rated, gel filled Cat. 5 ethernet cable from your "construction site" along the driveway or in the woods. You can get 1000' boxes of this for about $130. More than 1000 feet? fine, get more boxes and splice the cable together (either yourself with tape or buy a real weather proof telephone splice kit for about $25 at Home Depot). Bring the Cat. 5 into the house, and hook up the other VDSL modem in the back-to-back pair, and then connect to your firewall or PC. The VDSL gear should train up at at least 5Mbit of service, maybe more (depends on distance). May not be as fast as the cable modem, but better than nothing.
You don't have the bury the Cat 5 or anything. You can just lay it on the ground, in places where it is not going to get driven over, at the edge of the woods and the driveway. The outdoor gel filled cable is UV resistant and can handle being totally under water without issue. This cable will last you at least 5 years, maybe 15 -- as long as your splices are good.
It might cost $500 in total for the materials (NEMA box, cable), the construction demarc pole, and a couple of used VDSL or SDSL modems (check ebay). Plus the cost of the electrical install, and the monthly electrical bill (likely minimum billing) and the CATV cost. But you will have broadband, and the total cost will probably be around $100/month.
Another variation on this is to get the service installed at a neighbor's house the abuts your property, and just run the cable there.
Actually, Maine has a extremely advanced telecom infrastructure, especially given the low population density and sheer size of the state. In part, this is due to the legacy of having some very large call centers located in Maine in the past (MBNA, now Bank of America) and one of the more CLEC friendly public utilities commissions. And historically, Maine had more independent, private telephone companies than any place else in the US. Maine was the first state in the country to have every single public school and library Internet connected (56k or T1), starting in 1996, which is well over 1200 locations. Many of the high schools now have T3s and video classroom conferencing capability between each other and to the state University system.
In most towns over 10,000 people, there two or more competing broadband choices, and that doesn't just mean the ILEC (was Verizon, now Fairpoint) and a cable company. There are a number of regional CLECs providing DSL and dialtone services, and several rural areas with wireless ISPs that compete with FairPoint. The prices are not as low as you would find in MA or NY or CA, but it is available.
There is even one CLEC that has built their own fiber optic network in a Verizon/FairPoint city (Lewiston) that also has a strong cable company (Time Warner) and offers triple-play (voice/video/data) residential and business service and is expanding to two more cities in the state in the next year. You can purchase "lit service" multimegabit service in most of the cities, and leased dark fiber in the major areas, if you have the need and the budget.
As an example, you can get 10Mbit/sec of business class Internet pipe (fiber delivered) in the business districts of most central Maine cities from no less than 3 different carriers for about $1200/month. Typical residential DSL is about $40 for 2 Mbits.
That all said, there are still large sections of the state, in the towns and villages with less than a few thousand people, where you cannot get broadband at all, or you have only a single option. The state has recently setup a special program called ConnectME, funded by a telecom tax, to bring broadband to even the most rural of areas.
(yes, I live here. There is much that is still backward about Maine, but telecom ain't it.)
From a networking point of view PLATO did some interesting stuff.
NovaNET, the successor PLATO system designed by CERL at UIUC to replace the aging CDC Cybers, did a national network using a T1 speed satellite system for the downstream path and a 56k long haul leased line as the return path as a solution for remote sites. This was in 1986 - 1987, mind you. This allowed other universities and places like high schools to gain access to PLATO without having to own one of their own, or use long-haul T1s, which were too expensive.
And then they added TCP/IP support, and eventually the satellite was no longer needed to support remote sites with the Internet.
I wish I knew more of the technical details to be able to share them. But it was pretty damm impressive stuff -- hacking and extending a system that originally only had 2400 bps terminals to support TCP/IP connected PCs over ethernet, at high speeds.
Oh, and then there is the CDC Cyber emulator that was written in mid 1990s to replace the aging custom built Zephyr machines, that were built around 1986 as well, to replace early 1970s Cybers. The system still exists. Wish I could get my hands on a copy of the emulator and a system image.
wow. And I ever know what you are talking about. CERL was a cool place.
dude ... I'm a manager, with people working under me, an administrative assistant, etc. and I use Debian.
Prefer it, even, over RedHat.
A client of ours just had a very similar thing happen to them, with Divine's supposed patent on shopping cart technology, which is also insane.
unfortunately, they had to settle eventually to get back to business. We did put together a website to try to help fight Divine, and intend to continue the effort ourselves. And expect to get targeted by divine as well.
scum sucking lawyers are making most of the money off of these things, not the companies who hold the patents.
check out the history of the divine issue here:
http://www.divineintervention.biz/
Yeah, PLATO and NovaNET were way ahead of their time, in many ways. I count myself fortunate to have had a chance to "be there" while it was still in its prime.
The original mainframes that ran PLATO are long gone, as far as I know. NovaNET was an attempt by UIUC to rejuvenate PLATO in the late 1980s, using custom designed hardware that implimented the Cyber instruction set. The system had a unique communications infrastructure, using hybrid one-way satellite/land-line return data delivery system to connect customers nationally. This allowed small sites to enjoy the power of PLATO without having to buy a CDC system of their own. It was amazingly responsive, despite the use of the satellite link. That system was later replaced by Internet connections and NovaNET running under emulation on Sun server hardware. The system is now owned by NCS/Pearson, and is is still being used by some K12/adult education sites. But its days are definately numbered.
One interesting thing about PLATO systems is that the sense of user community was amazing. I think only a few on-line communities have ever reached the level of the PLATO systems (perhaps the WELL and some MU*s). The level of interactivty and features on the system went beyond what most people get on the 'net these days (if you don't count all of the web cams and p0rn). You could chat live with someone else, and actually see each individual key presses -- and get flustered by your inablity to type fast enough to keep up someone. Your could share your entire terminal screen with someone else to show what you were doing, or if you were having a problem. Help desk support staff were very knowledgable and usually responded personally within a few minutes to any request. There were discussion notesfiles on almost every topic. The user community was very active.
I really don't think that instant messages or web boards give you the same kind of feel.
And finally, the games were pretty impressive for the era. I personally lost about 5000 hours of my life to Avatar. (yes, really, 5000 hours -- the system keeps a log of your total usage) Nothing else was like it at the time, being able to play a dungeon kill-the-monsters game in a crude semi-3D enviroment while interacting in the game with 50 other people, on a 2400 bps dialup. And loving every minute of it.
You will need a clear fresnel zone of around 300 feet (back of the envelope figures) above the tallest obstruction in the path. So you are probably talking about a 400+ foot tower, or something like a 150 foot tower on a 300 foot hillside (cheaper).
A 45 mile link will be hard to align properly, you will want to hire professionals. Cell phone companies use this kind of gear and go these distances regularly, for their cell-to-cell backhauls.
Ok, I just gotta comment on the whole "Maine is a backwater" comment series. I was born in Maine and have spent most of my life here.
Sure, when I was growing up, I desperately wanted to leave the state as soon as possible, as there were _no_ good jobs for technically minded bright people to be had. This has changed a lot in the last 10 years.
Portland, Maine is becoming a bit of a technology center, with many software companies and web designers, a semiconductor fab facility, and telecomm carriers running fiber rings around the city. As a state, Maine was one of the first to mandate high speed Internet access for all schools and libraries, starting in 1995. Most high schools in the state are now busy installing ATM DS3s for video conferencing and data, thanks to a bond issue passed a few years ago. And our progressive Governor King is trying to setup a program to kick-start wireless networking and thin-client computing in education by giving every 7th grader a "web pad" kind of device.
Technology jobs are still not plentiful, and the salaries are certainly 20-60% less than what you can make in a major metro area. But so are some of the expenses (you can rent an entire 3 bedroom house on several acres of land for less than $600/month)
Bangor was recently rated as #1 in the Places Rated Almanac for towns under 100,000 people, and is recognized as one of the top 20 places in the US to raise a family. With the University of Maine's flagship campus in nearby Orono (around 10,000 students), there are more cultural opporunties than you would expect for a town of its size.
No, it doesn't offer anything like the cultural experiences of Boston, New York City, or LA. But it also lacks a lot of the negatives of those places, too. Violent crime is rare enough here that it is big news when it happens at all, and you don't have to worry about your car getting stolen, even if you leave the keys in it and the engine running while you duck into the corner store on the way home.
There is the issue of the winter season being too frigging cold most of the time, and getting a lot of snow. But the skiing and snow mobiling is really good, if you are into that sort of thing (I'm not).
As another person commented, come up here during July or August and spend a week along the coast or hiking the AT. You'll change your mind.
obviously you are a troll, but...
The people have spoken? The people are pretty evenly divided on this issue. And with all of the lawsuits and count-lawsuits, I don't think we will see the end of this until the Electoral College votes. And maybe not even then -- wouldn't it be a hoot if one of the electors change their vote from Bush or Gore to Nader, and we ended up without anyone having the 270 required to win?
The only ray of light in this entire process is perhaps the hope that some sort of standardization of voting proceedures and machinery will happen nationwide
This is sort like when you keep telling your boss that you need to invest in new technology because it is broken (underpowered, unreliable, etc.), and they keep saying "no", until the day that their business is seriously affected by the old systems in place (computer dies, the backup system doesn't work anymore, etc.).
Maybe it will finally become a priority to spend some money to upgrade to optical scan technology in those places that are still dealing with punched cards and hanging chads.
Unfortunately, I can also see local election boards saying "wow, we will never have an election that close again, so now we don't have to worry about it".
boy, that brings back some memories.
I know of a place that still has an Altos 586 in working condition. They don't use it anymore, of course.
I think it was in active use up until 1990 or so.
I have read most of the comments thus far and I am struck by how negative and uninformed most of them have been, which is really an unusual combination for Slashdot (usually if they are negative at least people know what they are talking about! ;-P ). And it seems that only the most negative ones are being moderated up. So here is my RANTMODE=1 on this topic.
I am a Maine resident, and I am pretty familiar with Gov. King's laptop plan. I am a freelance techie (sysadmin/network hacker), but I am also heavily involved in K12 education. A lot of my customers are school systems, and in the past I have been a K12 school district technology coordinator, a technology consultant for the Maine State Dept. of Ed., and done some substitute teaching and taught several adult education courses. So I think I can lay claim to having a few clues about this stuff.
Yes, the plan has some serious drawbacks. It was developed almost entirely in a top-down fashion. A lot of the details were not worked out until questions surfaced after the announcement, and many other details are still unresolved. The Gov. and his staff did not try to get the backing of the state's K12 technology professionals and teachers until afterwards.
Training *is* part of the plan, but not in the same "pot of money". The plan is for the State Dept. of Education to spend $1mil/year on staff development for teachers out of their regular budget. Yes, they should be spending more than that, but it isn't so bad since we are a small state (1.2 million total population). One of the good features of the plan is that is setup as an endowment -- only the interest on the $50 million fund would be used to provide the equipment on an ongoing basis. If the program doesn't work out, the money is still there to be spent elsewhere.
Still, I think the idea (especially the on-going funding aspect) is worth pursuing, with some broader oversight and input from the educational community.
I have noticed that people seem to get all hung up on the word "laptop", and immediately think of a big, expensive and fragile device. Laptop was a poor choice of words by the people in the governor's office to get a cutesy slogan ("lunchboxes to laptops").
Think "thin client webpad" instead.
Also think about what sort of technology might be available as "commercial off the shelf" or nearly-COTS soon, and how prices will decline in the next two years -- the program really isn't going to start until fall of 2002.
I am envisioning something like that looks like these (color webpads with a transmeta CPU), but with flash storage, wireless 802.11b ethernet, USB ports, and some sort of keyboard/screen cover attachment. Running linux, of course. This seems reasonable for $400-450/each, if you were going to be buying 18,000 of them at once.
The whole project must be done with wireless networking. Maine may lead the nation in having nearly 100% of all schools and public libraries connected to the Internet (with at least a 56k Frame Relay connection), but most buildings still don't have any network wiring outside of a few labs or office areas. Building cabling is still pretty expensive (minimum of $100/port to do it right). Wireless can get the job done a lot cheaper. It also enables the devices to be used anywhere, without any cords, which is a real enabler.
What I envision is that most of the real software and content/reference material would be on central network server (a mix of HTTP based and PDF-type resources, along with remote X or ICA sesssions for running some software packages). The student's work and information (email, notes, etc.) would be synced onto the server every time they were in the building, where it would be backed up in case they break their unit and need a replacement.
I think having some sort of information appliance like this available to all students (and teachers!) in a school setting could be a tremendous tool for learning. -- if used properly. Imagine being able to share test probe data from lab equipment in a science class with everyone at once, collect field data, etc. Even kids in Jr. HS can do meaningful real-world science, especially with the appropriate software.
Forget all that advanced learning stuff for a minute -- I think most of you forget that the average teacher doesn't have an email account, let alone one that they can access from their desk in their own classroom. How well could you do your job if you could only read your email for 10 minutes a day and had a to travel to a special room in your building to do it? Oh, and also remember that this applies to telephones too. Imagine a school where everyone has email -- students, teachers, and administrators -- and they use it. I have seen first hand how something as simple and basic as an email account for everyone in the building (and the equipment to use it) can have a profound change on the culture of the school, and improve the communication all around. It isn't the highest and best use of the technology, but it sure beats paper cubbyhole mailboxes and reams of paper killed every time the morning announcements are distributed.
Here is another thing -- people complain that textbooks are expensive and often out of date. It can cost between $50-100+ for a single copy of a science or history book that might be outdated in two years, but generally won't be replaced for 10+ years. If you look at the number of text books that the average college track high school kid will need during his/her HS career, you are talking about many hundreds of $ and dozens of pounds worth of text books (yes, they are reused several times over many years). Some of those books could be replaced with electronic versions, especially if the webpad device had a high quality display. Doesn't anyone remember having so many textbooks that is was almost impossible to shoulder your fully loaded book bag without incurring a muscle injury?
Some have stated that the money would be better spent on repairing buildings, higher teacher pay, more textbooks etc. I don't disagree that those needs are there. But, a lot of money is already spent in all of those areas -- not adequate, but at least the bulk of the needs are being met. Technology in education is not generally being funded at a level that leads to successful projects that have an impact on learning.
Most schools spend FAR more money on custodians and school buses than they spend on technology and curriculum integration. This is not to say that buses and custodial services actually get all of the money they need either, but they are generally funded at a multiple of the per capita technology and curriculum budgets.
Blah. I'm tired now. Looks like the latest budget deal hammered out between the state legistature and the Governor has reduced the fund to $30 million and it is now a general "technology for education" fund. At least it is a start.
The CD BlastIt! with a built in 25GB hard drive for storage of MP3s. Sells for $595. From Corporate Systems Center, who specializes in duplication equipment these days.
Yup, you sure can -- up to a limit of around 3500 feet, on 24 awg wire (at least, this has been my experience). If you use a heavier gauge of wire it will go further.
Of course, DSL routers are much less expensive than a Cisco 1600 and CSU/DSU.
True, but a new 1600 is overkill for something like a homebrew project anyway.
You can get used T1 CSU/DSUs (no frills units) for about $200 on eBay often, and then get a pair of used old Cisco routers (like a CGS/MGS or even an IGS) for between $100-150 each. Total cost around $600-800, unless you happen to have some old T1 capable routers sitting around (you'd be surprised at the sort of equipment that is being pulled out of service and scraped these days).
Yes, the older routers are not as fast, etc. etc. but for a simple end-point setup with a small number of users, even the 10 year old gear can keep up without any problems.
If one was right near a telco CO, you could run a small/cheap/hobby limited range ISP operation this way -- pick up an old AGS+ with scads of serial and ethernet ports for maybe $400 for the central site. They can still pump a respectable amount of data -- the AGS+ was often used as the network core router for entire campus or corporate networks "back in the day" (like with 12 ethernet ports, 8 T1s, and two FDDI ports).
I have used SDSL or HDSL equipment on both private and telco dry pairs in several installations. Usually, it just fires right up -- especially if one of the end points is literally across the street from the CO! I have used both PairGain and Tut Systems equipment. The PairGain stuff is nicer, but it is way more expensive.
Some may be surprised to know that you can also do this sort of thing with standard T1 CSU/DSU units, wired up in a cross-over fashion. Set the "line build out" setting to the maximum, and as long as the cabling is less than ~3500 feet, it will work. If the line is of marginal quality you will see some framing and CRC errors. But, it is usually nothing much worse than an average point-to-point telco T1. You can get used CSU/DSUs and routers cheaper than xDSL gear at the moment, too. This also has the advantage of letting you combine voice and data on that "circuit", if you are trying to connect two business locations together as cheaply as possible.
SDSL will give you 2MBit/second on a single pair of dry copper. HDSL gives you 768kbit/second on a single pair of copper, which can be combined for a 4 wire connection at 1.5Mbit/second (common with PairGain stuff).
Another little secret of the telcos is that these days almost all "T1" type circuits (including frame relay ports and ISDN PRIs) are actually delivered to you on PairGain or Paradyne type HDSL equipment. These are the so called "smart jacks", the white/gray boxes that you plug your CSU/DSU into on your end. The telco doesn't have to put all of that time into engineering a true "repeatered T1" anymore -- they can just grab some pairs and fire up the HDSL and turn up a T1 circuit in a matter of hours instead of days or weeks. They do this all of the time for their overpriced dedicated circuits, but for some reason they have to spend years "trialing" DSL for mass consumer use. uh-huh.
I work with a company that has one of these, and I have played with it a little bit. Pretty darn cool setup. They run mostly from RAM. The phone system has dual linux boxes (with some arbiting code) for fault tolerance -- if the primary linux box goes down, the secondary box picks up automatically, without dropping any calls in progress.
They can do all kinds of phone system statistics and reporting, using MySQL as a backend for the data. They have a full featured ACD as well. They have support for many flavors of CTI, and I have seen some pretty nifty CSTA based CTI stuff that works with this equipment (they use Delphi for software development).
From what I understand they will shortly have available email, text messaging, and voice over IP as available features, all routed/controlled by the linux based switch. For the next generation call center...
I did my first post-Y2K service call today; a place that had not upgraded from an old DOS version of Quicken that a secretary was using for accounting for a petty cash/reimbusement account. The DOS version just wasn't able to print checks in year 2000.
The problem was easily fixed with a copy of Quicken 2000 and an import of the data from the old version. 3 hours billable time, most of spent getting their old form feed checks to align properly with the new software.
This is exactly the sort of Y2K stuff I expected to see from small shops and small businesses. Most small shops only installed Microsoft Y2K updates, if they did anything at all.
They will just keep running what they have until it gives them problems, then they will fix it.
End of the month will be interesting....
About 6 years ago I saw a version of AIX Unix running on a IBM mainframe under VM. It was interesting, emulated a powerpc based RS/6000, as I recall.
I could believe that they might have a version of Linux running under VM, using some of the same tech they developed for that port of AIX.
But I don't see too many people with spare 3090s sitting around wanting to run Linux.
I spent a fair amount of time looking at RAID 5 solutions this past summer for a client. Both external and internal, for Linux. Tried several different controller card brands and drive configurations, did a lot of reading, and bugged a lot of vendors.
You really should try to test your options and all of the configuration combinations using something like Bonnie, on a machine with a simular configuration to your target server. Make sure that your Bonnie test file size is at least twice physical RAM, to eliminate the effects of RAM and controller caching on the results.
I found that using 6 drives in a RAID 5 config was a LOT faster than 5 drives, most of the time. In fact, 3 drives in an array was faster than 5 in some cases. I think it has to do with the way the controller cards were calculating the distributed parity, and perhaps also due to things the driver was doing. 4 drives usually wasn't much better than 3, either.
Stripe sizes for the array can also make a big difference. 32k vs 128k, etc. Larger strips sizes are usually better for I/O speed, but you may find for email that having a higher number of random seek transactions per second is better than raw speed.
I did not get a chance to do any hard testing of multiple channel configurations with these cards. I suspect that splitting the I/O onto multiple channels would be a win.
IMHO, you definately want a i960 based board or system, with the fastest CPU you can find on them. I noticed a signifigant difference between boards with the 33Mhz part vs. the 66Mhz part.
FYI for others: for controllers, the AMI MegaRAID (alias Dell's PERC2/SC) just blows chunks. Older non-LVD, non-raid SCSI systems can run rings around it, at least on write speed.
It has been my experience that the write speed on a RAID 5 system is generally only a fraction of the reading speed, like 1/4th to 1/2. For a quick and stupid test, do something like 'time cat /proc/kcore > /tmp/kcore' and do the math for MB/second.
oh, and my current favorite card is the DPT Millenium V controller, using it in several systems in various places for the last 3 or 4 months. Here are some Bonnie results for a system with a DPT with 6x 7200 RPM drives, all on the same channel (internal) Linux kernel 2.2.10, dual P3 500Mhz:
This is exactly how it COULD be done to support more than one ISP on the cable TV network. Or different IP addresses could be assigned to different customers of the competing ISPs, via DHCP.
Some of the very first cable modem products on the market (LanCity, back in '94-'96) were specifically designed to support multiple ISPs on a single CATV network! In their network subscriber management application for the CATV company, they had database entries for which ISP a customer was subscribed to. The CATV provider could define multiple ISPs, and assign new customers to any of them. LanCity had the notion that the local CATV company would only supply point-to-point transport services (for a fee) and then a seperate ISP would provide Internet connectivity, bandwidth, tech support, and so on. Not to say that the CATV company couldn't have a subsidary or a sister company that was also an ISP...
There are no technical reasons why open and competing access can't work on cable networks. When I was involved in some cable modem deployment work 4 years ago, this was technicially possible even then, when the cable modems were mostly based on ethernet and MAC layer protocols (VLANs were possible). Today, it seems that a lot of the systems are PVC or SVC based using ATM to a head-end switch. Should be even easier to keep traffic seperated between providers and customers.