Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!ox.com!ox.com!emv
From: emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti)
Subject: Re: Question on PCBridge, PCRoute and serial line drivers
In-Reply-To: gary@sci34hub.sci.com's message of 12 Apr 91 17:04:33 GMT
Message-ID: <EMV.91Apr12185322@poe.aa.ox.com>
Sender: usenet@ox.com (Usenet News Administrator)
Organization: OTA Limited Partnership, Ann Arbor MI.
References: <11689@davidsys.com> <41137@cup.portal.com>
	<1991Apr12.170433.26896@sci34hub.sci.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1991 22:53:25 GMT


   >To register for info on enhancements, support and licensing contact :
   >LANport Inc.

   Or, better yet, let's all just do business elsewhere....

Let's not be so quick here.  I for one am very glad that a company has
decided to take a promising but unpolished software product and turn
it into a real, live, supported product.  Hopefully they will make
enough improvements and add enough value that the resulting product
will be better (faster, cheaper) than the alternatives available.  

If you read the PCroute documents, you'll see that there were a lot of
developments necessary to make this software capable of being a "real"
network router that were never going to be done without some money to
be thrown at the product.  E.g. SNMP support, PPP, support for other
Ethernet cards, T1 cards, 56Kb cards, X.25, frame relay....things
which would be very nice to have.

The head of the document reads
	Until now a IP router for under $5000 was just about
	impossible to get.  Recent developments in PC hardware,
	however, has made it possible to convert a PC to an IP 
	router for a TOTAL of $800 a unit.
With any luck, LANport will also be addressing this very low cost
router market as well as or better than the un-funded free efforts
were doing.  Even if they charged a couple hundred bucks for the
software it would still let you build a good fast router on the cheap.

oblan: I'm in the market for a box which will provide very cheap 56Kb
sync PPP connections.  Any idea when a PCroute derived system will
interoperate with (e.g.) a Netblazer, a Cisco, or a 3com box?

-- 
 Msen	Edward Vielmetti
/|---	moderator, comp.archives
	emv@msen.com

"With all of the attention and publicity focused on gigabit networks,
not much notice has been given to small and largely unfunded research
efforts which are studying innovative approaches for dealing with
technical issues within the constraints of economic science."  
							RFC 1216

