State paid $22K each for Internet routers

http://wvgazette.com/News/201205050057

by Lazare • 14 years ago

148 130 14 years ago

sakai• 14 years ago

Well... at least they got high-powered routers for $22K apiece. But, it's a shame there isn't a law on the books that selling the government something at 50X the market price / need is fraud.*

* Yes, I realize this would bankrupt half the military contractors as well.

clarky078• 14 years ago

Can't blame them for selling them something they asked for. Who's to say they were even told what they were for. This is government waste and incompetence, nothing more.

You are correct on the military contractors as well though. Lots of government waste and incompetence there as well.

conformal• 14 years ago

wow.

somehow i doubt these sites have multiple uplinks, so they certainly don't need BGP routers. even if they're doing IPSec between some locations this can be handled by an old piece-of-junk $100 computer running BSD or nix, e.g. with isakmpd and pf.

stuff like this is why america's infrastructure is crumbling: dodgy contractors looking for an excuse to upcharge municipalities for irrelevant gear and services.

mahmud• 14 years ago

Here in Australia, our local DMV (RTA) is all MacBook Pros, all running Windows XP in virtualization. Would love to meet the dipshit that authorized this travesty.

dfc4• 14 years ago

You really want to advocate installing "old piece of junk" routers across the entire state? Have you ever managed a project this large? And if so did you use old piece of junk equipment?

sk5t• 14 years ago

$500-1k appliances with Atom CPUs running pfSense, please, not $100 clunkers with spinning drives and dust-laden fans.

Anything more than that for a moderately large library or most schools is an outlandish, shameful waste of money and equipment.

8ig8• 14 years ago

I describe this as 'funny money'. The government is spending other people's money.

I imagine the government worker that signed off on this purchase worrying a lot more about a dollar increase in the local lunch special than millions spent on equipment.

cma2• 14 years ago

It is also funny money because the marginal cost of producing one of these routers is more like $500, not $20k. It is just a transfer payment to the company, it isn't the same as if the government burned $20k worth of barrels of oil. Nothing near that amount in resources was actually wasted.

msellout• 14 years ago

Not quite. Cisco will probably take this purchase as a signal to produce more unnecessarily large routers. Those people paid to make the unnecessary routers could have used their valuable skills elsewhere. They may convince more people to learn how to build unnecessary routers instead of something more valuable. It's waste all the way down.

spydum• 14 years ago

it's sad, but nothing new. either verizon is lying about who asked for the specific model, or some inexperienced network "architect" decided not to do the due diligence to spec out what was required, and just asked for the moon.

dstroot• 14 years ago

Private sector FTW. Please, please I hope everyone who reads this begins to understand that governments are not meant to allocate resources. The idea (promoted by politicians, mostly democrats) that we should give the government our money and they will spend it wisely "for the betterment of all" is purely, simply and fundamentally flawed.

Out government should be small. It should perform a few basic functions like making sure we are secure, our trading interests are promoted and our banking and financial markets are healthy. It should educate our children to the best standards in the world. Finally it should make sure we are energy independent and our food and water is uncontaminated. That's pretty much it.

epoxyhockey2• 14 years ago

Please don't make this a democrat/republican debate. This is the crooked way that all of our US government is spending our tax money. We need corporate money out of politics if we want to prevent these outlandish contracts from being awarded to the corporations that donate enough money to campaigns.

It's not a democrat/republican or big/small government thing. It's about corruption of the system.

Out of your comment, I agree most with that our government needs to help educate our children. Without an educated population, things only get worse.

clarky078• 14 years ago

how is this not a big/small government thing? We gave away billions of dollars in a stimulus program with little to no oversight that is very clearly getting wasted here.

While the republicans are certainly guilty of lots of spending and many things, democrats are clearly the party that is guilty of more spending and even bigger government.

mikescar4• 14 years ago

Very well said. I agree with your point that governments aren't great at allocating resources, and should concentrate on the basics.

I disagree with the sidebar that it's mostly Democrats trying to take our money. Both parties do it, just with different priorities and in different ways, with all the accepted terms used to discuss it.

jsz03• 14 years ago

They wouldn't be buying any routers without the federal dollars to build fiber so it's kind of a moot point in this situation. Anyone who has worked in the private sector can tell you this type of stuff happens constantly. Too many technically ignorant people making decisions is the problem public or private. A private contractor could have sold them on the same exact package for the same reasons. Maybe even charged more for it.

As for your core point about the role of government... just look at the top 10 economies of the world. Most are not libertarian paradises and they're doing OK. It seems to me both models could probably work if executed properly. I doubt one model is inherently right and one is inherently wrong. Most likely some hybrid is the best solution for everyone.

mkramlich• 14 years ago

In other news, JP Morgan just posted a $2 billion loss due to their hedge trading unit. One of the paragons of the capitalist system. Big and old and supposedly "successful" and supposedly run by very smart people who deserve very high pay because what they're doing is very hard and technical, and only they know how to manage resources efficiently, unlike say the government. Let's not even get into the paychecks of all the CEO's, traders, partners, huge sums of money for what in many cases involves just hiring other people and telling them what to do, pointing out the obvious, etc. Meanwhile the little people, the people that do the vast majority of the real and necessary work in our communities --- teachers, doctors, repairmen, cops, firefighters, road crew, waiters, delivery folks, carpenters, electricians, etc. --- get the least amount of pay. Because that's "efficient". If that's an efficient allocation of resources, maybe that's a bad thing.

I think we agree on the idea that government should be small, or at least as small as possible. And we agree on the roles it should play. But I don't buy into the argument that government is inherently bad at allocating resources efficiently and private businesses are inherently good. I've seen way way too many examples that contradict the latter. I think it ultimately comes to individual situations and the choices of individuals, what information is available to them, their goals, where their financial interests pull them.

cdavid• 14 years ago

If you had worked in a big company environment, you would know that this kind of nonsense happens all the time, in both private and public environments. 30000$ routers are pocket money compared to some of the things I have seen (millions of $ spent to develop and maintain in-house software that cannot do 10 % of what a basic open source solution would do).

When you reach a certain size, and you have many competing groups, all with their agenda with the same company, it becomes difficult to allocate resources correctly, especially in a domain that is not considered "core of business" (IT being a common case, sadly).

hedgie2• 14 years ago

you should see the crazy amount big companies spend on IBM tools. people pay big money for clearcase.

licenses for clearcase cost enormous amounts. yet clearcase is missing many of the features found in open-source (and free) distributed version control systems. meanwhile, there is no free alternative to the routers, which may actually be necessary at some of the installed locations.

this doesn't include the huge server costs to run clearcase after you buy the license, which aren't necessary for distributed version control systems like git or mercurial. and big companies often spend more money buying other IBM tools to integrate for which free alternatives exist...

the amount of money spent on this purchase is fucking peanuts compared to what many large private sector companies spend on IBM software that lacks most of the features found in your favorite open-source alternative.

guylhem• 14 years ago

Spending other people money is so easy. But $22k apiece instead of the $485 solution quoted in the article - that's madness. It can't be just gross incompetence.

I guess someone involved in the decision got some kind of kickback, gift, or will have a nice cushy job offer waiting for them at Cisco when they get fired as they should be.

Remember this article next time some liberal ask to raise taxes and justifies this by saying how stimulus money is important, and why everyone should have the same opportunities (quoted in the article - as if a 22k router gave any kind of opportunity to people browsing the net in a public library in WV).

And cry when they get trashed at the end of their lifecycle without having ever been connected to optic fiber.

gjkood• 14 years ago

"Remember this article next time some liberal ask to raise taxes..."

Unless I misread, the article is talking about West Virginia. I would hardly call WV a bastion of liberal thinking.

Never attribute to malice (or political leaning) that which is adequately explained by stupidity (or incompetence)

gwright2• 14 years ago

You're right. This isn't a "liberal" failing. Wasteful government spending is an affliction that spans the entire political spectrum.

mikescar4• 14 years ago

Not to mention this was federal stimulus funding.

I love West Virginia, and there is so much more important the state government could do with this kind of money if they're going to take it outside of "Homeland Security". As in, better health care or safety for the huge population of coal miners.

franze2• 14 years ago

why do military closets cost 5000$ a piece? because it costs a sh#tload of money to sell the military a closet. i don't know where i read this but it is a great analogy.

i have been - in my time (2000? 2001? 2002? 2003? 2004? ...) - involved into selling the national austrian television their first video streaming solution (think: free (as in free beer) windows media streaming server) - it took man-years. man-years cost money.

quink• 14 years ago

I want to punch you in the face. ORF's IPTV stuff has been 100% unusable until the Mediathek came along.

I could further elaborate on the reasons why this matters to me, but I'm just relieved that it works OK now.

franze2• 14 years ago

yeah, i felt guilty for years. glad it's gone now.

mikescar4• 14 years ago

"West Virginia Homeland Security chief Jimmy Gianato, who's leading the state broadband project, defended the $24 million router purchase last week, saying the devices "could meet many different needs and be used for multiple applications."

"Our main concerns were to not have something that would become obsolete in a couple of years," Gianato said. "Looking at how technology evolves, we wanted something that was scalable, expandable and viable, five to 10 years out. We wanted to make sure every place had the same opportunity across the state."

Wow. I've spent some time in West Virginia libraries, and yes the internet connection was slow, but it's not due to the router. And in most towns, libraries and schools are not going to be serving anyone outside their walls with some kind of WAN. Best case will be public wireless near the building.

And how is it that the "West Virginia Homeland Security chief" is "leading the state broadband project"? Seems like bureaucratic overreach, technical ignorance, and budget authority all wrapped in.

Why not spend $50 for a router for libraries and something less than $22k per school?

dfc4• 14 years ago

What decent router costs $50? That blue soho router your thinking of is for your mom's house not a statewide installation.

mikescar4• 14 years ago

A router that can handle 5-30 clients at current internet speed standards within a library setting. Yes, bigger installations could benefit from a $20k router, but the vast majority of these routers are a complete waste of money in WV outside of Charleston and Morgantown.

Unless there is some big backbone being built that can service a mostly small-town and very mountainous state, spending $20k (each!) now so that your routing infrastructure within schools and libraries won't be too slow in a couple years is kinda crazy.

crazygringo• 14 years ago

For a library that only has four computers... I don't see the difference from my Mom's house.

jsz03• 14 years ago

These routers are pretty good choices for the schools. For the smaller sites it's hard to say without knowing their exact requirements for the future. For example this might be related to your question about the Homeland Security Chief being involved. Libraries are multipurpose buildings. In an emergency they could be used as an emergency response command center. Perhaps the library is used as a polling place and they have specific security requirements. The state may have decided it was in their best interest long term to equip all government buildings with a baseline level of equipment.

I think part of the reaction to this story is people coming to terms with how much real network equipment costs. It's definitely not cheap. You're paying for features, service, long-term support, upgradability, reliability, etc. Some of these routers will probably be in use 15 years from now. I've still got a Cisco 2500 series router chugging away. Next year will be it's 20th birthday. This stuff is built to last.

ghshephard6• 14 years ago

To be clear, from the article, the routers themselves cost $7,800. And, if I'm rolling out a state infrastructure, and wondering what I can put in place for the next 10 years to serve as a foundation, you could certainly do worse than the 3945 - it's a very flexible ISR, and, all-things being equal, it's probably not worth the hassle of putting 2921s in some locations and 3945s in others. Who knows how much bandwidth you'll want on these high-speed fiber connections 5+ years from now - the 3945 is rated for 350 megabits/second (with features), the 2921 tops out at 75 megabits.

Amortized over 10 years, I would have chosen the 3945 everywhere versus sticking 2921s in some places (the ISR that would have been an alternative) and 3945s in others. Single Security Policy. Single IOS update Policy. Zero doubt as to what features will run in a particular location.

I think what most people have difficulty with is that they are comparing this decision to roll out a state communications infrastructure with the fact that they can go connect a $60 linksys wrt54G in their house and serve a dozen people without breaking a sweat. And get wireless as well! The issues involved in scaling that across the state, while looking to the future, and managing all that gear is a different challenge though.

I don't see any huge scandal here.

clarky078• 14 years ago

That seems like a pretty silly argument to me. The library with 4 computers would be just fine with the $60 router. How is it any harder to manage that gear compared to managing the completely unneeded equipment that the local employees have no clue how to run.

Not to mention spending $14k on upgrades for many places that don't need that particular upgrade. I don't care if it's a little simpler to buy all the same, it's absurd to spend millions and millions of taxpayer dollars on something that is completely unnecessary.

glesica• 14 years ago

I'm not really sure where it came from, but the Slashdot summary states that a lot of these things were never even un-boxed. If true, that's an incredible waste and far-outweighs any convenience or stability benefits gained by using homogeneous hardware.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/05/11/1937235/west-virginia...

ghshephard6• 14 years ago

Interestingly enough - I can see both sides of the argument. When I was building the IT infrastructure for SSN, I ran the company's IT and it's dozen employees on a $75 linksys (and a half-dozen Poweredge Dell Server) for the first 5-6 months. Eventually, we grew to around 20 employees, picked up a data center colo-cabinet for our customer apps and needed a bit more robustness, so I purchased a $300 used Cisco 2621xm, a couple T1 WICs for $500, and ran the company for the next year on that 3 mbit pipe - the company got to around 50 employees before we moved. For the first two years of its life I spent a grand total of $875 on routing hardware and 50 employees were able to get their work done (including code pushes to our data center) over that 3 mbit pipe.

When I handed over network engineering, though, our last purchase order for networking equipment (with around 500 employees) - was north of $500K (including very hefty Cisco Discounts) (This isn't including the Data Center infrastructure - by then we had colo space in three data centers - just the corporate infrastructure for three buildings)

It's hard to explain without living through it - but the decisions that make sense when you are small, and you aren't paying your network engineers $150K/year (fully loaded), and you aren't trying to figure out how to handle pager duty, and warehouse and deal with RMAs, and support various types of hardware, and worry about rotating inventory, and dealing with upgrade cycles, and manage security, and patch levels, and remote administrations - not even considering future feature enhancements and performance (75 mbits sounds great today - but what about the future?) - when you get to scale, the CapEx (the capital cost of the hardware) starts to have fewer consequences on a technology investment (particularly over 10 years) than the other elements. Not to mention that there are also political issues (Layer 8) associated with differing levels of services/features for small population centers versus large population centers.

Yes - this does result in seemingly ludicrous situations like a 4 computer library being run on a ISR capable of running 350 mbits/second without breaking a sweat - but in 5-8 years from now, some technology administrator for the state will take over that infrastructure, and I can guarantee you that they won't be thinking "My God, we're over provisioned on our networking equipment" - but instead, "Thank goodness I have a few more years of runway before we have to replace all this gear."

I realize I haven't fully fleshed out the argument as to why it might make sense to put these hefty branch routers into smaller locales, but hopefully it doesn't sound silly.

Hey - at least they didn't roll out 6509s in all these libraries. Now that would be something I could rant against. :-)

NoPiece2• 14 years ago

If you are putting routers in a school that might serve a few thousand students and teachers, and a branch library that might be serve 5 patrons, you really can't afford to adopt a heterogeneous hardware strategy just to make admin easier.

It is surely more cost effective to use the cheaper router, and replace them when necessary than to buy the uber-model that will still be state of the art in 10 years.

jeffpersonified4• 14 years ago

Bucket system needs into three categories (large, medium, small) and find three routers that best manage those needs. Hire a full-time government worker to facilitate categorization of each installation location and manage the installation. Replace upgrade as needed.

antiterra• 14 years ago

I think you meant homogeneous, as in all the routers being the same?

jeffpersonified4• 14 years ago

It hardly seems like managing gear would be all that difficult at this kind of margin. Hire someone full-time at 100K annually who manages the systems and upgrades when necessary.

dclowd9901• 14 years ago

This is pure, unadulterated nonsense. There are plenty of ways to manage everything you mentioned with a tiered approach to the IT needs of the municipalities of the state without resorting to grossly over accommodating every location. Hell, they could've even used some of that money for regional IT management positions, putting people back to work.

Shame on you for justifying this nonsense in any way shape or form. This is textbook waste ala bureaucratic laziness.

sliverstorm• 14 years ago

Ten years of IT wages seems a bit more costly than some fancy hardware, particularly when you remember the pension.

batista2• 14 years ago

>This is pure, unadulterated nonsense. There are plenty of ways to manage everything you mentioned with a tiered approach to the IT needs of the municipalities of the state without resorting to grossly over accommodating every location. Hell, they could've even used some of that money for regional IT management positions, putting people back to work. Shame on you for justifying this nonsense in any way shape or form. This is textbook waste ala bureaucratic laziness.

And this BS attitude is part of the reason why the US has one of the worst internet infrastructures in the western world. Let's just use what is adequate for today and save some pennies, sure cable internet (or 640K) should be enough for everybody.

Not to mention that you're suggesting micromanaging and needlessly complicating the municipality IT infrastructure for marginal gains (compared to IT staff wages). Not to mention ignoring the "economy of scale" and mass-ordering benefits.

powertower• 14 years ago

When smart and experienced people tell you that things work differently in large orgs and govs, they don't primarily mean that in a negative way (...that the system is broken), they mean that as a matter of fact (...that the system is completely different).

It's not broken, it's not "fixable", it's just the nature of it all.

Let me put it to you this way, if they purchased $60 dollar routers, there would be a scandal about the incompetence and lack of forward vision at the top of HN right now.

ChristianMarks5• 14 years ago

The nonsense about $60 linksys devices was addressed in the article. Did you bother to read it? CISCO quoted a $487 router. You expect the taxpayer to foot the bill because you're too lazy to keep track of which router you've installed at each location? I deal with bureaucrats like you all the time. This is the last place I would have expected to find them.

moonchrome2• 14 years ago

The bureaucrats I deal with would buy the various routers at best prices and then proceed to build a software system to track which router was installed where that would cost > top of the line routers and would be built by a company friendly to the person making the decision. Initial costs would be low to win the bid but many "required changes" would ramp the bill up. They would create software jobs and get optimal router pricing - if that's not efficiency I don't know what is !

sp332• 14 years ago

The other thing is that the bids had to be submitted very quickly or they risked not getting any funding at all. In that light, they can't really be blamed for not doing research into the most efficient allocation of money! (To be clear, I blame the stupid bid process that rewards rushed decisions and punishes anyone who stops to think.)

keithpeter4• 14 years ago

Yes, I have been there, bid by fax with 6h turnaround in one case but that was only a few thousand.

Fix the process.

jsz03• 14 years ago

I'm surprised this article actually does a decent job covering both sides of the story. When you look at how flexible the ISRs are, and the likelihood these devices will be in service for probably the next 10 years or more, it's not not the worst investment they could make. They're actually well sized for the high schools and other larger sites. Obviously any 3900 series is going to be overkill for a little library but you do have to look at support costs, service contracts, future requirements, future upgrade costs, etc to get the full picture. This is not a 'bridge to nowhere' situation.

nknight• 14 years ago

You can get an ASA 5505 firewall with all the features you'll ever need for a small library installation for about $1200 retail (hell of a lot less if you're buying, say, 50 of them), and any network engineer who can't handle ASA configuration in his sleep should be fired immediately for gross incompetence.

There is no excuse for this insanity.

GreyTheory• 14 years ago

> Our main concerns were to not have something that would become obsolete in a couple of years

No you fool! These are designed to handle large loads, not protection from obsolescence!

dfc4• 14 years ago

The price includes maintenance and support correct? Its 22k for the metal only?

dfc4• 14 years ago

The price includes maintenance and support correct? It is not 22k for the metal only?

patrickgzill2• 14 years ago

Am I the only person that is (not really of course!) tempted to put on official-looking clothing and confidently walk in with a laptop and Cisco console cable, nonchalantly telling the librarian their "Internet box" "needs a service upgrade".

And then quietly replace it (after dumping the config and replicating the configuration) with a $100 half-depth Supermicro server bought off Ebay, running OpenBSD?

And then walk out, like the Grinch after he artfully puts Cindy Lou Who to bed, with a nice new 3945 for my own use?

EDIT: forgot to mention, I need a CF card reader also to get the config off the Cisco flash.

jeffpersonified4• 14 years ago

At least you'd be creating some value with those tax dollars.

c4urself• 14 years ago

Thinking the exact same thing -- there are plenty of libraries to choose from...

smithian2• 14 years ago

If you then sold the router on the second-hand market and gave the money to the library to spend on materials that they actually needed, your plan could do some real good.

doughj3• 14 years ago

Considering you're talking about pulling the config off flash, which is where the OS and not the config is stored, I'm not too worried about what you plan to do.

waiwai933• 14 years ago

From the article: "I'm not an expert on the technical side," [Gianato] said, "but these have all kinds of capabilities and applications."

Earlier: "Gianato acknowledged that he didn't heed Dunlap's advice or wait for an evaluation.

'The routers already had been bid out,' Gianato said. 'I think John was looking at our needs now, not looking at our needs into the future."

---

So not only does Gianato admit he doesn't know anything (which means he's not even suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect), but he also admits that he's not sure what his IT advisor was thinking about, but, eh, it doesn't really matter because the people who are the experts obviously don't think about the long-term and I'm not going to bother asking them about it anyway, because as we all know, bids are binding contracts. Right.

sbov• 14 years ago

> Gianato said putting the same size router in every school was about "equal opportunity."

A little known fact in the tech community is that a $7,800 router provides exactly 16.016 times more opportunity to a student than a $487 router.

tatsuke95• 14 years ago

All the tubes have to to be the same size. It's only fair.

patrickgzill2• 14 years ago

Verizon has successfully siphoned a bunch of money from the govt and by extension, taxpayers, yet again.

Anyone familiar with telecom and living in PA, WV, other states that have Verizon as the ILEC, knows this.

jeffpersonified4• 14 years ago

This is why I'm a libertarian.

georgieporgie• 14 years ago

Regarding planning for the future, this seems like someone who was used to buying machinery was put in charge of buying technology. Sure, in five years the library might need a gigabit of bandwidth, but by then the Linksys WRT may well handle it for $100. It's not like you're buying a work truck, which may well serve the government for 5, 10, or even 15 years (assuming low usage), or a lathe that might be used intermittently for 35 years.

There's a lot to be said for uniformity in deployment, but that's why you would define, say, three tiers of supported hardware instead of kitting out everyone with top-of-the-line.

jaredmck2• 14 years ago

Interestingly, the CEO of Cisco is from West Virginia and went to WVU - I believe he's one of the largest donors to WVU. (only know this because I'm also from WV, not suggesting any conspiracy here)

niels_olson• 14 years ago

I have a buddy who sells routing equipment at this level. Doesn't have a degree in Fahrenheit, but just cleared a mil in his bank account, owns his 6 bedroom Connecticut home outright and keeps a beach house in Mystic. He's 38. I'm 36, a doc, and still paying off student loans and working for Uncle Sam.

Klinky• 14 years ago

Sounds like a buffoon was in charge of the operation. Gianato suggesting that the unused/unneeded T1 interface cards could still be used for "video conferencing, wireless Internet and "voice over Internet protocol." is just painful to read. I am not sure how they can be used for such things if you don't actually stick them in a router!

I would still like to see a breakdown of the costs and what services are provided with the routers before I call it a total waste though. If it was just the routers then it was a waste. If it includes other things like a long term warranty & onsite service, then maybe not so much.

_wp3r• 14 years ago

Some one should request a detailed FOIA.

mehulkar• 14 years ago

What piece of technology will stay relevant `5-10 years out`?!?

suhastech• 14 years ago

Similar story in India would be like "State paid $20k each for Internet routers worth $20"

tylermenezes• 14 years ago

Hacker News, you continue to disappoint me. Every time I read an article, I know the comments are going to be filled with people arguing for the sake of feeling superior. And once again, they are.

No. This is not okay. No twisted sense of reason that only you have makes it okay. A $60 consumer router that needs to be upgraded every year is still cheaper than this. Even with support costs. People have been rolling out tiered infrastructure for years.

luminaobscura2• 14 years ago

i live in a developing country. I am thinking what would happen here if a state offical had 24 million in his hands to spend on the infrastructure? The official may be corrupt and this thing may never go to proper bidding. So official and a company would share say 10 million as the profit. But 14 million would still go to something useful.

In this story, at least 20 million of the money seems to be completely wasted. (Higher capacity router does not mean better internet access for 4-computer lib.)

Wait, not finished. So our corrupt official has 2 million in his hands. He may buy a car or a house, but probably he would spend it for something useful. So much of the value would return to the market. This is also true for the vendor company. But in the US case, the value is gone. it is like you burned the cash.

Moral of the story: stupidity is more dangerous than corruption. You may want to have a corrupt offical than a stupid one.

Finally, that stupid would never have survived in the relatively corrupt but wild political system of my country.

doyoulikeworms• 14 years ago

Yours is the most bizarre, vaguely chauvinistic straw man rant that I've ever read.

luminaobscura2• 14 years ago

where is the straw man?

sparkie• 14 years ago

In politics, stupidity is not a handicap

keithpeter4• 14 years ago

HN-ers

I'm not a programmer or technical person, I'm an end user who uses R, LaTeX and processing now and again. I hack an awesome spreadsheet. I have a degree and I do a professional job.

I could be a manager in a public service or an elected representative. Perhaps in a small rural authority.

Given the lack of consensus in this discussion thread, and evidence in the article of a similar lack of consensus between the various offices involved, how am I supposed to reach a decision?

Is there a case for some kind of planning toolkit or requirements estimation software? Is there an opportunity here?

PS: I and other colleagues did once have to help a senior manager spend out a £250k capital grant in 10 days. The idiotic spending deadline was due to delay in award of funds in a competitive funding round. We did ok but could have done better with another month or two to think through detailed requirements.

Daniel_Newby• 14 years ago

> Given the lack of consensus in this discussion thread, and evidence in the article of a similar lack of consensus between the various offices involved, how am I supposed to reach a decision?

1. You ask people who have already done this, like hotels who deploy thousands of networked sites. 2. You hold a bakeoff at a few dozen sites and see what works.

keithpeter4• 14 years ago

Yup, in my previous job that is exactly what we did, we found other Colleges who had done similar stuff and asked them how they did it.

I noticed some went for a 5 year sort of rolling provision making assumptions about increased traffic (but certainly no gold plating like in the original article) and others just bought what would work now and dealt with changes as they arose.

I have to say that the former strategy seemed to provide a more uniform system with less 'catches'. People don't share budgets so I have no idea which came in cheaper.

amalag2• 14 years ago

You use your intelligence. The Cisco person says you can do what you want with $500. Then do you continue to spend $30k instead? Do you think your small town library is going to grow into a college campus (as the other pro-mega-router people are expecting)

keithpeter4• 14 years ago

OK, I have to admit that looking at the picture in the article, I personally would have tried to vire some of the money for the super-router into a less fancy one and some decent all-in-one lcd desktop pcs for that table. The space saved by the all-in-ones could have provided a 'quiet table' for someone (and the PCs could double as DVD players).

I would have to make a spreadsheet (good at those) of all the sites and then include a rating for current traffic and then expected traffic growth over the life of the project. Yes, a library with 4 PCs is not going to have a lot of growth...

ChristianMarks5• 14 years ago

West Virginia Homeland Security must be planning for a truly unprecedented expansion of libraries and schools, based on the capacity of the routers and the number of them allocated to sites with a handful of users. This is heartening, especially during a period of massive cutbacks to public education. ;)

kirillzubovsky• 14 years ago

When a public school/library buys a 22K router with government money, sounds like an overkill (handout) of massive proportions. Someone's cousin here was probably on the Cisco + Verizon sales team. This is frustrating.

I remember a few weeks ago PB made a comment that at least social networks and alike make it easier to spread the news, which eventually will lead to greater good (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3890543). At least that's true, but doesn't feel like it's enough.

timurlenk• 14 years ago

I see a lot of posters argueing about the type of cisco router that should have been used or if a soho Linksys router should have been used instead.

Assuming that the government has some rules that requires them not to deploy soho or open source products and they have to spend the money on some big brand company: how come Juniper was not taken into consideration (or other known network vendors)?

I would argue that Juniper could provide cheaper equipment of simmilar of higher spec (let's ignore for a moment if that is oversized or not) - and it becomes even cheaper if you consider the simpler licensing terms and upgrade support.

Isn't the government supposed to run open tenders? Is cisco mandatory in the US?

forgottenpaswrd• 14 years ago

Time to connect the entire neighborhood to those machines and share the cost /administration.

PaulAnunda• 14 years ago

Smh, so much waste.

shane_mcd• 14 years ago

This is absolutely disgusting to me. The people that run big and small government in this country are complete idiots.

graylights• 14 years ago

Most of these places don't know what the box is and when Johnny down the street comes in to fix their internet it will be replaced by a blue soho router. There will be theft and waste and probably 20% of these will be missing within a couple years.

A librarian will notice a computer missing, but an expensive router replaced with a cheap one won't even be noticed for years.

State paid $22K each for Internet routers

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