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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

#61

Post by tokenadult »

_delirium wrote: post #15
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…

There seems to be something very broken with contracting in the US, which seems more specifically US government operations than government in general. If you look at something where you can compare prices between countries, like per-mile subway construction costs, the U.S. is a huge outlier, with procurement costs much higher than Europe.

If you look at something where you can compare prices between countries, like per-mile subway construction costs, the U.S. is a huge outlier, with procurement costs much higher than Europe.

The higher-than-Europe comparison I had not heard before. The higher than private industry cost of United States government contracting (and contracting by local units of government when they spend federal funds) is dictated by the Davis-Bacon Act,

http://www.dol.gov/whd/govcontracts/dbra.htm

once we understand that the law's requirement to pay "prevailing wages" means, in that context, to hire union labor even when less expensive nonunion labor is available.

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

#62

Post by mpyne »

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?

Well, think about it economically. What's the incentive for those who are skilled and capable to go into the public sector instead of private enterprise. Elections suck, the press sucks, your fellow public servants suck, having to deal with the general public, etc. etc.

Some days I wonder how we don't seem to encounter tons more corruption and incompetence at all levels of the U.S. government.

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

#63

Post by jrockway »

js2 wrote: post #56

Meh, I'm much more upset by the mountain top removal going on in WV, clearly visible in the satellite picture of Clay, WV included in TFA.

You can blame Cisco for that, too. See, one of their interview questions is "How many teaspoons would it take to move Mt. Fuji," and they needed to do a small initial study.

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

#64

Post by _delirium »

tokenadult wrote: post #61
_delirium wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be something very broken with contracting in the US, which seems more specifically US government operations than government in general. If you look at something where you can compare prices between countries, like per-mile subway construction costs, the U.S. is a huge outlier, with procurement costs much higher than Europe.

If you look at something where you can compare prices between countries, like per-mile subway construction costs, the U.S. is a huge outlier, with procurement costs much higher than Europe. The higher-than-Europe comparison I had not heard before. The higher than private industry cost of United States government contracting (and contracting by local units of government when they spend federal funds) is dictated by th…

European labor is pervasively unionized, though, and typically well-paid on construction projects, but the total cost comes in not just slightly cheaper, but at small fractions of the price. Other things involved: there are fewer overlapping transit and government agencies involved in European projects, approvals are faster, contractor billing/profits seem to be more carefully scrutinized, and there is less scope for anyone to file NIMBY suits over the projects, because the courts aren't involved in those kinds of infrastructure-policy decisions.

This article discusses some examples: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/11/1-billion-d...

Madrid comes in at $58m/km, Paris and Berlin at $250m/km, and anything in the USA at over $1 billion per kilometer. NYC at $1700m/km. Some of those differences have legitimate explanations, but that's a 30x difference between Madrid and NYC. The Copenhagen metro, with quite expensive Scandinavian unionized labor, also cost a mere $150m/km, and the current expansion seems to be clocking in around $200-250m/km.

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

#65

Post by trout »

Visualizing this conversation..

IT Director to Sales Guy: "We just got $20M in grant money for getting broadband across the state. Can you get me some numbers?"

Sales guy to engineering team (partner or internal): "Hey I need lots of boxes. They've got 1300 sites."

Engineering team: "Ok.. what do they need?"

IT Director: "Pretty sure my network guy says everything has to have redundant power supplies and at least 1 ethernet connection. To do a survey for each site would take over a year due to bureaucracy, and I've got 3 months on this grant"

Engineer to Sales guy: "Ok I built out those routers. Do they really need redundant power supplies everywhere? 3900's seem big."

Sales guy: "Ya, that's what they said. Anyways this came out below budget. Thanks!"

IT Director: "Looks to be under budget, meets our needs, thanks!"

.. meanwhile IT management/engineers aren't involved. Somewhere, someone didn't slow this project down to do due diligence. That or somewhere buried in some document is a requirement for redundant power supplies, but that sounds less likely the case.

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

#66

Post by cynwoody »

jacques_chester wrote: post #57
vidarh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Also, companies can go broke. Compared to that sanction, independent auditors are a band-aid.

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

#67

Post by prawn »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #53
rdl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who, Cisco? I wouldn't be excusing their actions in a hurry.

Everyone in this deal should be advising as though they are spending their own money. You can spend a lot of money, but would you if it were you own and you had other things to consider in a budget?

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

#68

Post by raylu »

gchpaco wrote: post #54
ryguytilidie wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I don't think this is regulatory capture at all. Regulatory capture is when those charged with making rules meant to limit the powers of a group are in bed with that same group.

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

#69

Post by ericcumbee »

"did not request or require that the routers for the state's schools have internal dual power supplies. Education would not have made this requirement because unless a school has two power sources the feature of dual power supplies would have no use."

What if one power supply fails? I expect better from ars.

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

#70

Post by prawn »

damian2000 wrote: post #33
jessaustin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bullshit. They could have put the network engineer from the Department (the guy who confirmed he had not requested dual power supplies) on this for a week, and he would have had a solid estimate for far less. Put him on it a month and he could have had an itemized order with the exact models to order from Cisco or from any of its competitors. If he were busy with other duties, any other network engineer in th…

Agreed - it sounded like the Cisco guy just spec'd up the absolute maximum needed for one or two locations, then just decided to roll out the same spec across all 1000+ locations, obviously trying to maximise sales. Cisco was probably shocked when the government approved it all.

"Cisco was probably shocked when the government approved it all."

Wouldn't that imply they hadn't succeeded with the same ploy before? I think that's unlikely!

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