Any sign of supply chain returning to normal?

Thu May 19 16:43:25 UTC 2022

We have customers being forced to use EOL products that they previously replaces as they continue to wait on the vendor for new EQ.
Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+razor=meganet.net at nanog.org> On Behalf Of Dave Taht
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2022 12:16 PM
To: Jason Biel <jason at biel-tech.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: Any sign of supply chain returning to normal?

On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 11:01 AM Jason Biel <jason at biel-tech.com> wrote:
>
> > The oem ain't gonna support the resold device either.
>
> Many vendors support resold gear through a recertification cost in order to bring it back under a support contract.

In my world, support ends after 6 months. Period.

It's even worse than that. Mediatek, for example, provides a devkit to new customers, still, based on the obsolete
LEDE-17 release of openwrt, e.g. 6+ year code. I recently pointed out to a marketing manager pimping how wifi-7 was going to fix latency on wifi in 3-4 years, how crappy the factory driver was, compared to what's now in linux

https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/fq-codel-unifi6/

and asked when they were going to ship that instead, to a blank stare... And yes, I know of several "new" customers for that chipset that are using that obsolete code, too scared and incompentent to make the jump to a more current OS.

If you think that's bad, qualcomm is worse, and I just established a new record, I think, with truly ancient broadcom's openwrt based devkit that just shipped with the "NEW" triband tp-link deco series...
https://www.tp-link.com/us/deco-mesh-wifi/product-family/deco-xe75/ - I can hardly bring myself to talk to the sea of CVEs and incompetence in there... you can start with them STILL shipping dnsmasq 2.62... and linux 3.3.8.

I used to be really proud that openwrt was used by all these major manufacturers, but I'd also thought that they'd have been responsible enough to at least keep up with CVEs, and stay within a few years of the mainline.

If you are wondering why WiFi-6 works so badly out of the box, or why
ipv6 is not rolling out, you don't have to look much further. The really, really sad thing, is that the ODM in these cases, just slaps the devkit and a fancy gui on top of it, and ships the product, with no further support.

So I kind of view recycling routers, with newer software, as a great way to clean up the present ecosystem. And if you  looked at the first url I pasted above, with 4x more throughput, and 10x less latency, on "obsolete", hw.

> On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:58 AM Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:33 AM Jason Biel <jason at biel-tech.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Who's going to support that reflashed device? Certainly not the OEM vendor.
>>
>> The oem ain't gonna support the resold device either.
>>
>> Yes, arguably, someone or someones doing a value add would have to be 
>> making money at it somehow.
>>
>> However, at least in my world, volunteers make the world round, still.
>> It would kind of suck,
>> I suppose, if someone unleashed a few hundred thousand reflashed 
>> routers like the TIP openwifi effort ( 
>> https://telecominfraproject.com/ ) seem to intent on doing...
>>
>> ... but if the OS is good enough to not need support, the impact is minimal.
>> >
>> > On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 10:30 AM Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 9:07 AM NetEquity Sales <sales at netequity.com> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > As someone who works within the "secondary market" for networking hardware, there is a ton of demand spilling over into the "pre-owned/vendor refurbished" market.
>> >>
>> >> I just wish there were people putting in a value-add, like 
>> >> reflashing with better software, first.
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > Market prices on pre-owned equipment are rapidly increasing in step with increased demand and dwindling supply.
>> >> >
>> >> > Market prices on 1G - 10G switching products, wireless infrastructure devices, etc have been rising precipitously. Even semi "legacy" stuff going back 2-3 generations (EOL/EOS) from current gen have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled in price.
>> >> >
>> >> > I've been involved in the hardware business for 20 years and the current market landscape is unprecedented.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > Cory J. Andrews
>> >> > ++++++++++++++
>> >> > NetEquity.com (Formerly CiscoBuy.com)
>> >> > 4519 Northgate Court
>> >> > Sarasota, FL 34234
>> >> > ++++++++++++++
>> >> > TF/FAX 877.582.4726
>> >> > E - sales at netequity.com
>> >> >
>> >> > On Thu, May 19, 2022, 9:48 AM Josh Luthman <josh at imaginenetworksllc.com> wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I'd bet it's cheaper and easier to quantify new hardware than software.  Labor was super expensive and now it is ready to implode.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 9:27 AM Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> As I've been saying for a while, instead of buying new kit, 
>> >> >>> perhaps we could spend some time on getting better software onto our older kit?
>> >> >>> Getting stuff to multiplex better, be more reliable, last longer?
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> It isn't just me wanting to upgrade a billion+ routers with 
>> >> >>> existing crappy software to openwrt, is it?
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T21on7g1MqQZoK91epUdxLYFGd
>> >> >>> tyLRgBat0VXoC9e3I/edit
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> FQ World Domination pending: 
>> >> https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
>> >> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Jason
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> FQ World Domination pending: 
>> https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
>> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
>
>
>
> --
> Jason

--
FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC