Is anyone aware of lists or sites dedicated to novel
uses for old hardware?
I'm trying to figure out what to do with some old working
gear that is valued practically as scrap. e.g. old lucent/ascend
max 4002 units. Me thinks they are 6 year old antiques.
Your six-year-old antiques might be perfectly fine production gear for operators in other parts of the world. I would be trying to find a way to ship them cheaply to South Asia or Africa (or finding some other organisation that already works in those regions who would know how to distribute it).
Joe
Joe Abley wrote:
Your six-year-old antiques might be perfectly fine production gear for operators in other parts of the world. I would be trying to find a way to ship them cheaply to South Asia or Africa (or finding some other organisation that already works in those regions who would know how to distribute it).
Like for example the man who presented at the recent SANOG about a wireless network for yak farmers and villagers in remote parts of Nepal.
He's got that entire wireless network running off solar antennas and connected over a single dialup - providing services (bbs, email) to a few hundred users, all of them yak herders, farmers etc.
He could sure use any gear at all that NANOGers have to spare .. and could also use donations of (say) satellite connectivity if someone can spare a VSAT link to replace the dialup that he's currently using to serve these guys out of.
suresh
Another place to dump used gear with some expectation that it will be put to good use is NSRC (www.nsrc.org). They have the advantage (for probably most people on this list) of being located in the US, and hence being less complicated to donate to.
Joe
The SETI Institute (http://www.seti.org/) is also interested in
equipment donations, and they're tax-deductible.
Joe Abley wrote:
Is anyone aware of lists or sites dedicated to novel
uses for old hardware?I'm trying to figure out what to do with some old working
gear that is valued practically as scrap. e.g. old lucent/ascend
max 4002 units. Me thinks they are 6 year old antiques.Your six-year-old antiques might be perfectly fine production gear for operators in other parts of the world. I would be trying to find a way to ship them cheaply to South Asia or Africa (or finding some other organisation that already works in those regions who would know how to distribute it).
I'm working with Digital Aid (www.digitalaid.org) on a large shipment of computer equipment destined for Africa right now. In the past the focus has been on computers, but network equipment is also very welcome, as I'm working on some potential projects over there that could use it. Digital Aid is a nonprofit so you could get tax benefits from your donation. If you're interested let me know- I'm in Atlanta, but we've got folks throughout the US who can take equipment.
Robbie
Over here in Iraq, I've seen people use new SOHO gear ($30 NAT
router/switch, etc.), and I've been moving them up to used low-end
cisco gear and linux/freebsd PCs for some things. The big contractors
bring in expensive cutting-edge gear which doesn't work very well
(because it's still so new), especially for VoIP (IP phones on the
desktop really are not as well understood as multiline digital PBXes
with VoIP CO circuits).
The advantage of soho type new equipment, vs. equivalently priced old
enterprise gear, is it is a LOT easier to train people on it. We're
thinking about setting up a proper networking school, maybe trying to
do vendor cert prep, since we have 100 or so iraqi engineers (with cs/it
SB/SM degrees, often), but that is something for the future.
We're a (successful) commercial company, but I'm also very interested
in serving unprofitable markets through some kind of non-profit
efforts. We have a lot of VSAT experience, and are looking at fixed
wireless for some things, so if anyone could help us serve some
additional users who we can't justify from a purely business basis,
I'd be interested.
There are some big organizations like USAID/DAI doing internet cafes
across the country, which is great, but I've found some of the best
"charity" is grass-roots, inexpensive/free
The things which I think will help the most:
#1) Moving this country off NAT. I'm trying to get a LIR set up, and
once we do that, I am not going to be shy about using public IPs where
appropriate. I plan to do some slightly more advanced than
default-to-vsat routing at 1000+ sites.
Donations of routable IP space would also be appreciated. /19 or so
would probably be good for now.
I'd be happy to assign space to commercial competitors as well as
others on a non-discriminatory basis.
#2) Increase in-country peering...right now, almost all sites are
little islands with a vsat route back to EU or US, so two systems in
the same office might have two vsat hops and a fiber backhaul to peer
at somewhere in california.
#3) Technical training -- any assistance from vendors in this would be
most appreciated. cisco would be particularly good, but even just a
general IP/ethernet/open systems, or MCSE even, would be a useful
practical program for iraqis with a fair bit of theoretical background.
#4) Transponder capacity -- any "interesting"/non-commercial users will end
up using very pricey VSAT bandwidth, and I only have a very limited
amount of this spare, after commercial customers are taken care of
(sat bandwidth for most systems is kept at very high
utilization...people will eat all you put in front of them). If there
are any companies with "event" transponders, etc. with mideast
coverage, I'd be happy to do the ground station work to take advantage
of that capacity, on a pre-emptable basis, for community networking.
#5) Software -- r-t-l, i18n issues, as well as general http caching
proxies, anti-virus proxies and devices to mitigate the effects of
viruses/worms on very small, very expensive uplinks, etc.
Old enterprise gear is probably the least useful assistance available
right now, at least in general, but there are probably exceptions.
Good test/measurement gear, training lab equipment, tools, and
RF/microwave are probably the main ones. Shipping is pretty
expensive, about USD 4/kg by air, but for bulk consolidated shipments,
there's probably the land route from Kuwait or Turkey.
Iraq is a slightly special case, since there are a lot of big
companies operating over here, and a well-educated population which is
not actually inherently poor, but I think a lot of this would apply
elsewhere.
We should have an Iraqi non-profit org soon, but for US tax purposes,
I'm sure there are US non-profits which could be used to channel any
kind of contributions.
The best way to make it successful long-term is to get local
tech/business people involved, and basically serve as
investors-with-equipment in their project, and reward them (with more
equipment, etc.) for meeting certain goals -- either providing
specific services, or generating revenue in business which would not
be commercially viable without free capital equipment, etc.
Quoting John Ferriby <john@ferriby.com>:
The things which I think will help the most:
> Old enterprise gear is probably the least useful assistance
> available right now, at least in general, but there are probably
> exceptions. Shipping is pretty expensive, about USD 4/kg by air.
We see a lot of folks on the US side trying to donate 7500s and Cat 5000s,
which are next to useless for people in countries without much network,
particularly when kitted out with FDDI and ATM blades. What we see a lot
of demand for from countries that don't currently have much network are
1760s, 2600s, 3725s, 2950s, and 3500/3550s. Not least because that's
what's affordable to ship, and affordable to pay the customs bribes on.
Try getting a half-rack piece of gear through customs in a lot of
developing countries, and you'll have a bit of work on your hands.
> We should have an Iraqi non-profit org soon, but for US tax purposes,
> I'm sure there are US non-profits which could be used to channel any
> kind of contributions.
NSRC (http://www.nsrc.org/) does that, as does PCH. Both are 501(c)(3)
non-profit in the US, which means that donations can be written off
against taxes at fair market value. I presume that they're a little picky
about what they take, as we are.
-Bill
NSRC (http://www.nsrc.org/) does that, as does PCH. Both are 501(c)(3)
non-profit in the US
while nsrc has been doing this for about 18 years, it is not 501c3.
but the tax angle can be handled. write to nsrc@nsrc.org if you
have useful equipment to donate. [ and yes, 75xx are useful to some
folk ]
randy