Re: "Is TDM going the way of dial-up?"

["Justin M. Streiner" <streiner () cluebyfour org>]

On Fri, 26 Mar 2010, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:

> On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:35:37 EDT, "Justin M. Streiner" said:
>
> > I don't see TDM going away entirely any time soon because it still comes
> > in handy for things like out-of-band management, etc, plus nowadays there
> > is lots of TDM gear on the secondary market that can be picked up
> > dirt-cheap.
>
> All the same, the price of gear dropping through the floor on the secondary
> market is usually a pretty good indication that the technology is played out,
> because supply-and-demand says that demand for the gear will keep the price
> propped up until the demand goes away - which usually means the tech is
> played out.

I don't know too many people who build their out-of-band management 
networks out of the latest and greatest gear.  There are tons of Cisco 
2511s, 2611s, etc that have been given second lives as terminal servers.

There are also lots of areas where Ethernet transports are either 
ridiculously expensive because the carrier wants me to partially subsidize 
their initial build costs, or it's just flat-out not available.  There are 
also areas where I've seen it delivered over n x STS-1's bonded together, 
so the Ethernet frames are still riding over a SONET transport in many 
cases.

jms