On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 7:58 AM, A. Chase Turner <ch...@stumpy.com> wrote: > I am seeking a $100 turnkey micro hardware appliance to plug into a LAN hub > (behind a consumer-level cable modem) whose only purpose in life is to send > heartbeat (and simple quality of service metrics) to a pre-configured central > aggregation service on the WAN. > > Key requirement is the micro hardware appliance will be installed by > non-technical elderly end-users -- so, it must be pre-configured and > literally plug and play without need for the person installing the appliance > to open a web browser to configure. And it must be a secure, good-reputation > stand-alone hardware appliance ... because the heartbeat cannot / must not be > a service installed on the end-user's computer where it becomes a support > burden (e.g., did the end-user turn off their computer? Is their antivirus > software blocking the outgoing heartbeat? That the end-user needs to enter a > username/password/destination to enable the heartbeat, etc) > > There is a commercial turnkey solution that meets all the requirements except > one -- that the solution cannot exceed $100 per remote appliance : > http://www.myconnectionserver.com/learnmore/quality.html > > Question to the list: do you know of an alternative hardware solution under > $100 that would suffice -- and be of such quality that an incumbent internet > service provider will not thumb their nose at me when I call in to report > remote users are down based upon the loss of heartbeats from the remote users? > > MOTIVATION FOR THE ABOVE > > Ten elderly neighbors to my mother in a rural area suffer frequent internet > outages from their one (and only) incumbent cable internet service provider. > All of them have learned they will encounter one of the following responses : > > "You are the only one reporting a problem" > OR > "We need three reports before we take action" > OR > "We fixed it. You need to re-boot your modem. (moments later after > rebooting cable modem). It must be your computer that is the problem." > OR > "We know there is a problem. We'll send a crew out to repair the issue next > week" > > These 10 elderly neighbors are fuming ... and they recently formed a call > tree -- so that when one person suffers an internet outage, they call other > neighbors in the call tree to see if they too have an outage ... and if so, > each calls in an outage report (often 20 minutes of being placed on hold) > > The call tree is working (somewhat) to improve accountability and response by > the cable service provider ... but it is a waste of their time as there is no > formal "record" of outage events to spur the provider to provide refunds for > unscheduled service outages. Thus, I am seeking a turnkey quality of > service micro appliance that automates (and documents) service outage > notifications .. so as to allow me (living in a city and my being on a > different internet service provider) to take on the role of calling the rural > cable service provider and claim (with authority) that I know that 10 > individuals systems (who have the heartbeat appliance installed) are down and > that the cable service provider needs to fix the issue... > >
OpenWRT running on one of these: http://embeddedtimes.blogspot.com/2011/09/tp-link-tl-wr703n-tiny-linux-capable.html I ordered mine from the Volume Rates link: http://www.volumerates.com/product/genuine-tp-link-tl-wr703n-150m-11n-mini-wifi-wireless-router-for-instant-wifi-connection-99273 You could order all 10 for around $180 + shipping (straight from Hong Kong). I have two, they're pretty awesome and potentially useful for all kinds of things... -- Kristian Kielhofner
