Well, initially I talked to Verizon about their router offerings because they'll often throw one in for no additional cost. Problems with Verizon cellular routers were
- I don't have any reason to have faith in their reliability, and nobody will be there to reboot it - Feature sets were kind of a grab bag. My worry is maybe I get a model that does some particular thing that I rely on, but later they discontinue that model and I won't like their new options - All of them were 12VDC with a wall wart. We have -48 plant, so I'd be adding converters or inverters, and we're paying a low voltage contractor for that stuff so it's not as cheap as it was when I was in the WISP world. Someone mentioned it, but most of the console servers are just a computer running some flavor of Linux and then adding a cellular card. WTI is no exception. To me that's actually a good thing. I can connect it both to the console ports and via ethernet to our management VLAN. As long as I can get into the CLI of the console server I should be able to use it as a launchpad to ping, ssh, ftp, or whatever into the equipment, and that's in addition to having console access. When I lived in "WISP World" this product wouldn't have made any sense. When money costs more than time I would just take some kind of PC and slap in a USB cellular card and a quad port PCI serial card or two. If I couldn't get a -48V PC I'd just wire in an inverter or isolated converter. However, where I'm at now I think my boss would be shocked if I spent labor on hacking something together when there's a thing we could just buy and be done with it. Oh and apparently since we already have a bunch of phones and tablets with Verizon we can add devices like this to our account for $20/month on a 2GB 4G plan (+$15 per additional GB), and adding the static IP was only $4/month. That OpEx is peanuts next to everything else, and the data limit doesn't matter because most of the time it'll sit there and do nothing. That's affordable even in WISP World. We could have unlimited 5G for $40, and the static would still be only $4 more, but obviously we just don't need 5G for this. -Adam On Sun, Nov 3, 2024 at 3:42 PM Forrest Christian (List Account) < li...@packetflux.com> wrote: > Sorry to hijack the thread. > > I've been considering developing a few different products to broaden my > product line so it isn't so WISP focused. One of the things I've looked > at is a terminal server device since the existing ones seem so rediculous > for the price. > > BUT.. to meet the price target I'd want to hit, cellular connectivity > would be out of the question, due to the excessive cost of the testing that > the cellular networks require to permit connection to their network. This > is probably why the existing products which have cellular connectivity cost > so much. > > I was sort of under the impression that it was pretty typical for out of > band cellular access to use one of the off the shelf wireless > routers/hotspots to provide management-only ip connectivity. That way, > you can connect to the management interface on every device. Is this > not the case? > > On Sun, Nov 3, 2024, 6:55 AM dbernardi <dberna...@zitomedia.net> wrote: > >> >> Not that device in particular but the number of locations and RS-232 >> ports per device may drive you in a certain direction. >> >> I've been looking for a new solution as well. With 100's of locations I >> find you need some sort of dashboard to track and manage devices, >> whether home-grown or from a provider. >> >> We originally used Opengear 3G console servers but had to replace them >> as Verizon phased out 3G service so we put together our own RPi with a >> Verizon 4G USB cellular modem and a Startech USB/RS-232 adapter with >> appropriate number of ports. That <$200 solution worked pretty well but >> if you don't pay attention to tunnel management (make sure it switches >> back to on-net link) it's easy to rack up a 5 figure Verizon bill even >> with a M2M type service. >> >> So if you have a lot of devices to manage having visibility into them >> and/or cellular is key. Tunnels become less important if you are >> willing to pay for static IPv4 or stable IPv6 addresses from the carrier >> but you still have to monitor them. >> >> I looked at some ~$1500+ devices but at scale it becomes a pretty >> significant capital project and I consider tunnel/cellular management >> more important anyhow. >> >> I tested the Digi Connect IT-4 with Hologram and it worked well but they >> didn't have Verizon as a carrier at the time (they do now for additional >> fee). We provide cellular backhaul to many T-Mobile and AT&T sites so >> in the event our PoP/cabinet becomes isolated the concern is that same >> towers we provide backhaul to would be how we would gain out-of-band >> access to our equipment said outage. Point being in our case having >> primary access to Verizon is important. >> >> I'm currently looking to test Symetry (Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T)+ Peplink >> router. Peplink has a what looks like a very nice tunnel service >> dashboard (InTouch @ ~$40/year/device) but their hardware is lacking >> console ports so you still need some type console/RS-232 server if you >> need more than 1 port. I'm considering leaving the RPi and Startech in >> place as a terminal server (works well) but using the Peplink+Intouch >> for cellular access/tunnel management (where we struggled). >> >> There's also consideration of what you are planning to do with RS-232 >> access. Are you just doing occasional "show interface" commands when >> you lose in-band access, uploading firmware/bootloaders, or collecting >> telemetry. >> >> Anyhow, based on what I looked at so far, I think most of the integrated >> rack mount console servers are pretty similar in features, cost and >> reliability but your cellular related requirements may matter (eSIM or >> multiple carrier support for example). Some also seemed to differ in >> tunnel options as well if that's a consideration. >> >> So if the cellular console server meets your needs and cost (scale) is >> not as important, I think you'll find they all pretty much the same. >> >> >> >> On 11/1/2024 3:14 PM, Adam Moffett wrote: >> > >> > Has anyone used this product? Does it suck? >> > https://www.wti.com/products/dsm-8dcnm-e-gige-console-server-8-port- >> > rj45-dual-ethernet <https://www.wti.com/products/dsm-8dcnm-e-gige- >> > console-server-8-port-rj45-dual-ethernet> >> > >> > I got spam from this company recently, and purely by chance I was >> > researching a cellular OOB management option so I got the manual and >> dug >> > into it a bit. It has exactly the features I'm looking for. I'm >> > wondering if by chance anyone here has already bought from this company >> > and maybe you can save me the trouble of finding out the hard way that >> > they're terrible. >> > >> > >> >> >> -- >> AF mailing list >> AF@af.afmug.com >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >
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