This might (slim chance, mind you) approach the realm of sane if we assumed that people actually wanted to learn how to do something, instead of the popular approach of "I just want it to work." There appears to be no concept of costs, the eventual degrade of such a system due to human nature, etc. No matter how you start a system like this, you're going to end up with a governing body at some point. People want order, they want to be told what to do, and there's always people that are willing... and on rare occasion capable of doing such.
Overhead view is always useless... and if you actually know how to drive... no, I don't mean what they teach you in driver's ed, overhead view is a hell of alot more difficult. iRacing and GranTourismo (last one I played was 3) if you're playing cockpit view, the basics to translate rather accurately. iRacing especially. Maybe not to street driving, but certainly accurate for learning lines and whatnot around a track.
If this is actually an efficient option, then great. It would be even better if people would just adopt on a mass scale some of the existing efficient technologies... no, I'm not talking about hybrids. Small turbo diesels, for instance. If the majority of the country stopped worrying about having the biggest damn SUV on the road to attack all those off-road obstacles in yuppie suburbia, we'd have be a great start in the right direction.
What's your interface to the net, line cards, bandwidth expectations, etc. I spent 5 years building a fairly heavy duty wISP network on a stupid low budget from my boss. You can obtain used cisco stuff for cheap. For instance, you can get your hands on a 7206vxr with a NPE-G1 for $10k or less nowadays... If you need something with high redundancy do do less intensive switching, you can pick up a 6509 with a pair of SUP2-MFSC2 cards for less than $2k. As far as support contracts go, I can't imagine that you need the latest and greatest IOS, let alone a support contract that costs more than the replacement of a piece of hardware.
On a side note... why are you asking about the uBR series? Are you not running an ethernet network?
Last I checked, there's no such thing as "low cost commercial grade." Depending on where you are, unlicensed stuff may not cut it, dealing with interference etc. And licensed hardware is certainly not cheap. With wireless, as well as so many other areas, you get what you pay for.
I will agree on the fact that it is "who you know." I got lucky and got a reference from a friend to walk into a small ISP where i work today. In this particular company, I am basically required to know everything from basic networking to BGP, *nix servers, wireless (not just 802.11 but UNII equipment as well), physical installation, and on top of it all, I build the databases that keep track of our inventory and network management.
One of the things that I hear most often in the IT field is learning core routing. If you can walk into someplace knowing how to configure and COMPLETELY understand BGP on just about any routing OS, and have the sheet of papaer that confirms it, you'd probably be pretty damn well off. I've had multiple job offers to go do wireless for people, but I decline the offers, reguardless of the money, just for the fact that I'd get incredibly bored if that's all I ever did. Granted, the days when I get a help-desk-ish call are usually the days I want to kill someone, but the jack of all trades deal works well for me.
To comment on cybermint's: "I doubt many employers want a mediocre jack-of-all-trades kind of guy." If you're going to do something, never be mediocre, why even bother? Anything you do should be done perfectly the first time. If you can't do that and your work comes out mediocre, stick to what you can actually do.
btw, a CCIE wouldn't be a bad idea etither...
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This might (slim chance, mind you) approach the realm of sane if we assumed that people actually wanted to learn how to do something, instead of the popular approach of "I just want it to work." There appears to be no concept of costs, the eventual degrade of such a system due to human nature, etc. No matter how you start a system like this, you're going to end up with a governing body at some point. People want order, they want to be told what to do, and there's always people that are willing... and on rare occasion capable of doing such.
Overhead view is always useless... and if you actually know how to drive... no, I don't mean what they teach you in driver's ed, overhead view is a hell of alot more difficult. iRacing and GranTourismo (last one I played was 3) if you're playing cockpit view, the basics to translate rather accurately. iRacing especially. Maybe not to street driving, but certainly accurate for learning lines and whatnot around a track.
If this is actually an efficient option, then great. It would be even better if people would just adopt on a mass scale some of the existing efficient technologies... no, I'm not talking about hybrids. Small turbo diesels, for instance. If the majority of the country stopped worrying about having the biggest damn SUV on the road to attack all those off-road obstacles in yuppie suburbia, we'd have be a great start in the right direction.
What's your interface to the net, line cards, bandwidth expectations, etc. I spent 5 years building a fairly heavy duty wISP network on a stupid low budget from my boss. You can obtain used cisco stuff for cheap. For instance, you can get your hands on a 7206vxr with a NPE-G1 for $10k or less nowadays... If you need something with high redundancy do do less intensive switching, you can pick up a 6509 with a pair of SUP2-MFSC2 cards for less than $2k. As far as support contracts go, I can't imagine that you need the latest and greatest IOS, let alone a support contract that costs more than the replacement of a piece of hardware. On a side note... why are you asking about the uBR series? Are you not running an ethernet network? Last I checked, there's no such thing as "low cost commercial grade." Depending on where you are, unlicensed stuff may not cut it, dealing with interference etc. And licensed hardware is certainly not cheap. With wireless, as well as so many other areas, you get what you pay for.
One of the things that I hear most often in the IT field is learning core routing. If you can walk into someplace knowing how to configure and COMPLETELY understand BGP on just about any routing OS, and have the sheet of papaer that confirms it, you'd probably be pretty damn well off. I've had multiple job offers to go do wireless for people, but I decline the offers, reguardless of the money, just for the fact that I'd get incredibly bored if that's all I ever did. Granted, the days when I get a help-desk-ish call are usually the days I want to kill someone, but the jack of all trades deal works well for me.
To comment on cybermint's: "I doubt many employers want a mediocre jack-of-all-trades kind of guy." If you're going to do something, never be mediocre, why even bother? Anything you do should be done perfectly the first time. If you can't do that and your work comes out mediocre, stick to what you can actually do. btw, a CCIE wouldn't be a bad idea etither...
PEACE, I'm out. -KG