Who has a land line any more?

[bmblank]

Man, what i wouldn't do for options in high-speed! No DSL, no cable, satellite internet is craptastic and expensive. I could get isdn, but at its best its still less half as fast as what i get on my cell phone at its worst. Sadly, on my cell phone i probably average in the 400 to 500k range.
Landline is there because of previous owners, but there's no service cause i see no point with cell phones.

[STC]

^^ Eek!

Dial up? Man I'm sorry.

[bmblank]

Well, luckily I'm right on the edge of cell signal, so instead of dialup i can use a cell data card. But still, at 700k on a good day, its far from high speed.
I must say, though, how annoyed i am with the internet in general. Back in the days of 28.8 and 56k, internet content was to the point where you had to wait some time for it to load. Now, in 10 Meg times that content should load instantly. But instead, content gets more and more data intensive to the point that 10m isn't quite enough to load pages instantly. As speeds increase they start adding more and more useless content.
50 years from now I'll be saying "damn my slow 100 Meg connection! Why do all these websites need this crap that makes an 800 Meg connection necessary?"

[deihmos]

No one heard of the magic jack? Why pay these ridiculous prices when you can get service for just $20 a year.

[STC]

^^ Yes I have played with that. Really didn't like it.

[bmblank]

Back in college i had voip instead of a cell phone. Worked alright. I think at the time it was $14 a month. Now that i have the cell though... Plus, no sense in having voip over a cell network.

[mark1234]

I receive faxes on a regular basis!

There's someone else still using a fax machine??!!

[mark1234]

That'll make two UK WP customers...

Don't forget me!

Plus I know six people at work who now have WP7 phones (four of them previously used fruit based devices!!)

That's impressive. I don't know anyone else with one. Just a mass of iDroids.

I've only ever seen two others out in the wild as well.

[Crash2009]

We have 6 at work. The boss was griping about the bill (400/month) the other day, so I volunteered to look into it and advise him a way to save some $$$. The first thing I found was that his DSL provider was ripping him off. The bill says 12mb download is included, he was getting less than 6mb, so I fired them, and hired Comcast. Instantly got the bill down to 250, including 30mbps download speed, 32 channels, and the same 6 phone lines.

The following are some appliances that we have in a Convienience Store/Gas Station.

Now that we have a wee bit of bandwidth, I was thinking about running some Cat5e to the appliances that can use them, such as the Phone Card Kiosk, ATM, Sega (kinda like Western Union for Mexico), Lotto 1, Lotto 2, Bridge Card, Backup Credit Card Swiper. Was planning to keep a couple phone lines, one for talking and one for faxing. This should get the bill down to about 130. Since I am saving 270/mo., and I was figuring 18 month ROI, that leaves me with 4860 for the project.

Any suggestions on switch/router or other hardware I should I be looking at?

[STC]

That pic looks a lot like tilt-shift

With all those machines to hook up, I would first checkout what requirements they have in a security sense.
My interac card machines have to be 'protected' with an archaic list of rules of do's and dont's.

[erkotz]

We have 6 at work. The boss was griping about the bill (400/month) the other day, so I volunteered to look into it and advise him a way to save some $$$. The first thing I found was that his DSL provider was ripping him off. The bill says 12mb download is included, he was getting less than 6mb, so I fired them, and hired Comcast. Instantly got the bill down to 250, including 30mbps download speed, 32 channels, and the same 6 phone lines.

The following are some appliances that we have in a Convienience Store/Gas Station.

Now that we have a wee bit of bandwidth, I was thinking about running some Cat5e to the appliances that can use them, such as the Phone Card Kiosk, ATM, Sega (kinda like Western Union for Mexico), Lotto 1, Lotto 2, Bridge Card, Backup Credit Card Swiper. Was planning to keep a couple phone lines, one for talking and one for faxing. This should get the bill down to about 130. Since I am saving 270/mo., and I was figuring 18 month ROI, that leaves me with 4860 for the project.

Any suggestions on switch/router or other hardware I should I be looking at?

I can't speak from a "what is allowed" aspect, however a few things to keep in mind:
Re: the backup CC machine, that probably needs to have (at least as a backup) a phone line - there's not much point in it being a backup if it's dependent on the same phone connection.

Do you send faxes, or just receive? Depending on your needs, an internet fax service may be suitable.

Now, as far as hardware, the #1 rule here is if you can find it in Best Buy, don't buy it. You want a reliable router - not some consumer POS.

If you want to go cheap, I would either go with an old PC or something a PC Engines ALIX box (what I have at home) running PFsense.
If you want more support, check out things like Sonicwall or Juniper's SoHo options.
Another option would be to use the router built into your Comcast modem - that way when it breaks, you have one single point of blame.

I've been very happy with PFSense on an Alix box, it's "just worked" - but make sure whatever solution you choose meets the support needs of the business.

[kc10boom]

I'm an enterprise specialist at a good sized casino. For a business like that I would only recommend Cisco routers and switches. You can get a model that fits your business needs and isn't too pricey. Make sure to check on PCI compliance if you're going to network all the stuff.

[Crash2009]

Thanks for the tips. PCI Compliance, wouldn't want to get burned with that one. I was just looking at the Cybera solution http://www.cybera.com/html/solutions/pa ... eways.html Can't get it at Best Buy so it must be half decent. I like what they say about eliminating phone lines. Their equipment also has an embedded Verizon 3G/4G connection. It would be nice to have a backup internet.

Further investigation onsite today has revealed that our building has 10 phone appliances sharing 6 lines. 2 separate DSL connections. It appears that I will have to eliminate them both and form one.

I had never heard of Tilt-shift before. Your right it does look like that. The tilt-shift was purely by accident not by design. If I remember correctly I just used a cheapo camera, zoomed in to 4X or 6X for that shot.

[woodchuck]

I got my landline so I'd have a reliable phone connection for my work. The irony? It has crapped out twice in the last 3 weeks. So much for reliable!

[erkotz]

I'm an enterprise specialist at a good sized casino. For a business like that I would only recommend Cisco routers and switches. You can get a model that fits your business needs and isn't too pricey. Make sure to check on PCI compliance if you're going to network all the stuff.

IMHO Cisco is overpriced (and overkill) for this situation (Arguably most/all). I'm not saying cheap out, but plenty of Cisco's competitors have solutions that will be sufficient here at less money.

[Crash2009]

Did some more digging around down there. This business sure has grown over the last few years. At this point, it appears that rather than upgrading the existing network, they just bought another one. There are 3 leased internet connections. The original one, the V900 is an ETS (electronic transaction server) and back in the day, even today, works quite well with the 16 port Netgear switch, and the Seimans 5930. I would assume that the 5930 is configured with some type of VPN, connecting with the Banks and the oil company. They tried to add LOTTO to the existing network, and when that failed, they had to put in a satellite dish. Then tried to add 1 computer for the office, that didn't work, so they added another DSL line. Camera system is a hog too. Over the years, small analog telephone devices have been added, but at the cost of more leased lines. I think the total per month with the satellite must be 550-600.

I think I am going to suggest that they rewire the place back to a new switch and router, ditch the dish and the 2 DSL's, get one honkin Comcast with 1 phone line for about 150/month. Upgrade a couple of those analog credit card swipers, VOIP for the land lines, and ATM and FAX will share a line. I think this job is beyond my expertise, I think I'll have to hire some help.

Oh I almost forgot, I think they will have to get an Infini4 and an Echo!

[erkotz]

One thing: Everywhere you need one cable, pull (at least) two. It still won't be enough in some cases. Pulling 2 cables is barely any more work than one, and will be handy in the future.