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Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

arstechnica.com

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Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#51

Post by DanBC »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #22
nikcub wrote: post #8

I have first hand experience with this, although in Australia. My first job was working for a IT development and solutions shop (this is over 17 years ago) where they won the bid to rollout the internet and network gateways across a large number of Australian government schools. We were doing similar work for private school at the same time, and the process for the public and private school could not be more differen…

How are people not being arrested for this daily?

Buyer beware. It's a bit harsh if the buyer is ignorant.

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#52

Post by nicw »

This almost happened at the California State University (CSU) level. An RFP went out, Alcatel bid $22MM, Cisco $123MM.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/102512-cisco-csu-26371...

""Everybody had to comply with this spreadsheet," he said. "Every campus had two border routers, two cores, and two server farm switches. All the vendors had to propose exactly the same solution" based on the average number of servers deployed at each CSU campus. "All of this is based on exactly the same data to all of the vendors. It's exactly the same formula for all of the vendors.""

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#53

Post by WestCoastJustin »

rdl wrote: post #36
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #24

Probably going against the grain here, but what about the operations staff who are charged with supporting these 1,164 routers? What about warranties and parts replacements? There is a price for standardizing on a piece of hardware at such a large scale. When you standardize, sure there is going to be hardware overkill in some places, but in the big picture this is just a price of doing business at this scale. What i…

There's a point in standardizing, but they probably should have standardized on 2-3 different branch router products, vs. one.

Yeah, I agree. I'm just saying I can kind of see where they are coming from.

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#54

Post by gchpaco »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #22
nikcub wrote: post #8

I have first hand experience with this, although in Australia. My first job was working for a IT development and solutions shop (this is over 17 years ago) where they won the bid to rollout the internet and network gateways across a large number of Australian government schools. We were doing similar work for private school at the same time, and the process for the public and private school could not be more differen…

How are people not being arrested for this daily?

Those charged with enforcing the rules are not infrequently in bed with those violating the rules; "regulatory capture".

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#55

Post by cyrus_ »

noonespecial wrote: post #12

It seems absurd but I'm going to have to side with the state/library on this one. It can literally cost more to make a choice to use the cheaper unit than to just buy the big one. "Some libraries need smaller routers. Ok. Which ones?" could easily run in the millions before any routers were purchased. Unfortunately, that's just the nature of government purchasing.

But "some libraries need bigger routers. Ok. which ones?" would cost much less (especially given that the answer would have been none of them.)

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#57

Post by jacques_chester »

vidarh wrote: post #19
nikcub wrote: post #8

I have first hand experience with this, although in Australia. My first job was working for a IT development and solutions shop (this is over 17 years ago) where they won the bid to rollout the internet and network gateways across a large number of Australian government schools. We were doing similar work for private school at the same time, and the process for the public and private school could not be more differen…

You get similar stuff at private companies too, though few private companies are large enough for corruption like that to be able to reach the same scale without getting too big to go unnoticed by auditors for long enough. The number of times I've had potential supplier hint at extra perks or "return favours" is fairly high, and I've not even been in positions of very substantial purchasing power. It's often not even…

One main difference is that public companies are required by law to have independent auditors.

Government departments are not.

In Australia independent audits rely on the Australian National Audit Office, which is profoundly and deliberately underfunded because of its annoying habit of discovering embarrassing incompetence and wastefulness.

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#58

Post by dustcoin »

jessaustin wrote: post #13

Gosh, it seems like state bureaucrats can't figure out how best to spend money, and don't care to hire anyone who can. How might one's political preferences change in response to this shocking revelation?

Almost no one will change their preferences. Liberals will blame "evil corporations". Libertarians and conservatives will blame "big government".

Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

#59

Post by rachelbythebay »

Oh, the FCC E-Rate program. So much corruption, so much waste. There were people who would purchase something for a school with the most % of kids on free or reduced price lunch, since that was used to set the "FCC match" percentage. So, if 90% of the kids were on that plan, we'd only pay 10% of the actual cost.

So, they'd order something for the school with the highest percentage and would then park that equipment there for a year (to fulfill the requirement that it must be used there). A year later, they'd move it somewhere else.

I wrote about this particular router instance last year and linked it with my own FCC story from the year before that. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/05/08/router/

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