Broadcom has created a pure commodity market with their ADSL router chip set. All brands based on this chip set are effectively the same product. Next thing you know, we will be buying ADSL router futures on the floor of the stock exchange! Here is a comparison of the specifications of the top three brands based on the Broadcom chip set -- US Router, Zhone and Comtrend.

Summer is coming and that means more ADSL trouble reports.  Be prepared with a permanent solution.

Now that the weather has gotten warmer, you are probably getting more support calls from the customers that you installed last winter. Warm weather increases the resistance of outdoor cable and will turn those customers that barely complied with your service plan into customers that are just outside the plan. Why not give them a speed boost with an ADSL loop extender or ipTV booster?

Telephone technical support is free during business hours, but a lot of you can only do your product installs after business hours.  Now it's 7pm; dinner is waiting and you just can't get that last VPN up.  You're getting hungry, but if you leave the door locks behind you.   Maybe all you need is another set of eyeballs to find the parameter that doesn't match.  Our e24x7 Extended Technical Support program allows you to call us around the clock.  Somebody will be available, on call, to help you get through this.  The programs costs $15 plus 20% of the product purchase price.  For an additional 10%, we will monitor your router 7x24 (seven days a week, 24 hours a day) and fix it or call you if it develops problems (order code e24x7monitor).  We can monitor Asterisk PBXs and virtually any other systems too.  Call for quotes on other special services. 

Electronics Break!  Things break when you least expect them to and ususally just after the manufacturer's warranty expires. For most businesses, this investment represents a major infrastructure expense.  The Strowger e3warrranty was designed to offer complete protection of this investment. If your equipment fails, malfunctions, or ceases to operate properly for any reason -- as a result of manufacturer defect, component failure or user negligence, we’ll provide an expedited replacement FEDEX overnight within continental USA.  With e3warranty, your hardware purchase is completely covered for a full 3 years from the date of purchase.  The equipment must have been purchased from us and must be returned within the e3warranty period. e3warranty coverage must be purchased at the point of sale, and is not refundable.  The programs costs $15 plus 20% of the product purchase price.

Here is the latest DrayTek Product catalog. There are quite a lot of new products & features from DrayTek this year:

• Dual WAN routers,
• 802.11N,
• DSLAM/VOIP integrated products,
• GigEthernet Switch
• VPN Load Balance
• TR-069 & Management Systems
• SSL VPN
• Support for HSDPA USB dongle

Take a look at the Smart Monitor, it has the look of a Deep Packet Inspection product. We can't discuss the price quite yet, but it will be a real economical alternative.

We are still waiting to get the VigorTalk -24, a 24 port VOIP ATA. It and the VigorAccess IVD look like great products for old building retro-fit projects.

Call with questions. As always, we encourage taking a test drive.

Slowly but surely we are getting recognized for our ADSL loop extender. Here is an excerpt from Telephony's March Magazine: 'Another little-known company, Widearea Communication Technologies, promises to boost DSL signals with an ADSL loop extender and an “IPTV booster” that it claims extends the range of DSL by 30% to 50%. Widearea's small, inexpensive gear is “refreshing in its simplicity,” said Kermit Ross, a consultant with Millennium Marketing — especially considering the mix of new technologies and new standards being developed to completely rethink how copper access networks are built.'

http://telephonyonline.com/iptv/news/telecom_pushing_coppers_speed/index.html

Does your greenfield Fiber to the Home business plan depend on new home sales? Last year US telco's were all talking about Fiber to the Home. This was driven by a rapidly growing housing sector that was creating lots of the “greenfield” customers that are needed to make fiber to the home prove in. Now, with the housing sector in a serious recession, that "green" field seems to be drying up fast. [1] With most of the “brownfield” market already tapped for ADSL [2], Telco's now seem to be interested in extending ADSL to those semi-rural areas that have never been important before. Your rural and suburban customers can be an important growth area this year. ADSL Loop extenders are the perfect way to get new customers with a minimal cash outlay.

The Vigortalk ATA-24 is an FXS gateway. This product has most of the features of the VOIP features of the 3300V, including:

• 802.1Q VLAN
• Draytek's famous QoS Prioritization to analyze and prioritize traffic.
• Load Balancing
• High Availability & Fail Over
• LAN/WAN port mirroring
• LAN-LAN VPN (100 ipSec Tunnels)

This product is brand new, so expect orders to be back-logged 3 weeks. The retail price is expected to be about $899.

The Vigortalk ATA-24 datasheet can be downloaded.

The feature comparison matrix is designed to give you a bird-eye view of the various DrayTek features. Some exceptions may apply, see product datasheets for individual product specifications.

We are announcing the acquisition of a line of IP Surveillance cameras. This is a very robust product family that includes indoor and outdoor cameras, DVD recorders and a complete Web based management system. The camera discussed here is really the mother of all surveillance cameras. What is really impressive is the optical zoom and the level of intelligence built in! The ICA-651, outdoor speed dome internet camera, offers pan / tilt / zoom to control over TCP/IP networks. The ICA-651 features a 220X zooming (22x optical zoom, 10x digital zoom), auto focus, auto iris, fast, accurate and continuous 360 panning operations. Plus the 32 presets, 4 camera tour configurations, and combining the motion detection, these unparalleled surveillance functions of the ICA-651 are able to satisfy the demanding surveillance and remote monitoring applications.