Dial Concentrators - TNT / APX8000 R.I.P.

Sat May 15 05:04:18 UTC 2010

Mark Foster wrote:
> Thus the wider concern I flagged; if the only source for equipment and
> spares is the grey market, aren't the vendors missing the boat on
> something which shouldn't even have a major overhead to maintain?

There is no sales of new chassis, which means the manufacturing is shut 
down.  The costs to maintain support and spares for an obsolete platform 
with a declining customer base and no further sales is quite high for 
the vendor.  If they charged the real cost to provide support to the 
operator, most likely the operator wouldn't take the support contract.

End result: end of support.

If the operator /really/ needs to keep it going, they'll figure out a 
way to spare it.  Telcos have been specialists in this regard for a long 
time.

> What about developing nations where Internet isn't yet as commonplace as
> it is in the 'west' ?

They skip dialup.