Responses...
tboy said:
Mlam: thanks for your INFORMATIVE POST, see? that's the difference between SAYING you're wrong, and putting forth some evidence of it.
You are welcome. But seriously...why did you keep INSISTING you were right? You know, it is possible to be mistaken without absolute proof in a circumstance where you do not possess absolute proof either.
tboy said:
BTW: did you work for Catena networks? Sounds like it.......
Nope. Think bigger. Way bigger. And more Canadian. Though that fact amused many of us greatly, since the vast majority of the customers and employees were NOT in Canada. When I said "you never heard of" I meant my customer / client, not my employer.
tboy said:
and the "cross connect" as you say, seems to be the item I saw in the basement. It really didn't appear to be that complex just as on each floor, all the cables simply connected to a junction box (not all that different than a 3 way splitter) to a cable that ran down to the basement.
Now, in MY building of 76 units, there is NO way in HELL robbers would install a piece of equipment worth $50Gs. So, could that piece of equipment be installed elsewhere to service ALL the buildings in a certain area?
The answer to your question is "yes"...which is how single family home residential areas are served.
But your 76 unit building would not necessarily fall below the threshold. It would really depend on both the nature of the traffic / users in your building, and what else is around you. Say your building was an mildly older condo on the east side, where it might be surrounded by mostly single family homes and / or 3 flat - 6 unit brownstone type buildings. The sort of environment you find all the time just east and west of the immediate downtown core. Your building would be the only one around with a suitable environment (HVAC, Properly sized electrical, proper safe, secure and lockable space, etc.). Or...say your building was mixed use, with a hefty amount of SOHO (Small Office / Home Office). A lot of TERBites fall into this category based on things I have read....these type people are looking for commercial grade service, with upwards of 10Mbs of bandwidth clear channel (meaning not shared or dynamic). Put ten such folks in one building...add 50 people who are looking for 1 Mb of bandwidth on their high speed internet, give them all digital TV...and you are talking Gigs of traffic during peak times, easy.
tboy said:
Let me ask you something else: I was working on a house in Toronto. This house had 3 separate units. Due to configuration (and to remove a cable running up the main staircase to the unit on the second floor) I split the cable at the robbers box outside the building to the second floor unit. Inside the robbers box was nothing but a 3 way splitter and a large drum shaped filter. The cable came in from the street into this box. No router, no "cross connect" nothing but the splitter. Each unit had digital tv, net access, and VOIP capability.
Where was the cross connect or any other piece of equipment?
Some where up the street, in Rogers subterranean vault. Or...at the cloest shared POP (there are lots of "secret switch / computer rooms) in any metropolitan city that are shared by the various internet and telco providers for reasons just like this...very, very often competitors will lease floor space to each other also in existing POPs). The load you are describing isn't much...so it wouldn't warrant its own network gear. It was being shared with everyone else on the street...perhaps a few streets, depending on the neighborhood.
tboy said:
BTW: my computer has gone "down" once in 7 yrs and this was due to a faulty video card.
So you have had a screen freeze or the blue screen of death once in seven years?
Any moderately sophisticated computing device comes with hardware AND software. Your PC has an OS (windows or Linux or whatever), and each device you connect to it uses a "driver". The network elements I am speaking of also come with an OS....a VERY ROBUST and reliable OS (because blue screens are not acceptable). That is another reason why they cost so much....the development costs for the software....because you ain't gonna sell 50 million copies of it at Compuware...and oh yeah...it has to be able to be patched and upgraded seamlessly on the fly.
