cat >/dev/null

I’m going to share a secret with you.

Do you want to know how to make your computer work forever??

I know it sounds impossible, but it’s actually quite easy. Well, probably not that easy, but definitely possible. It amounts to two simple rules:

1. Keep your backups up to date. This is the most important. As soon as your backups are not in sync, your old computer will fail. And I mean instantly.
2. Plan to buy a new, more powerful or otherwise better computer, every single time you turn old faithful on. This is another key requirement. The slightest concession will lead to failure.

Trust me. Two years and counting. I had my last failure two days ago: a new power brick, and back here I am. My notebook will never die… as long as I follow the two golden rules.

Some day ago I bought a ZyXEL Prestige 2602R*.

It is a ADSL2+ router/firewall device with VoIP capabilities. Specifically, it features two telephone ports, to which you can plug analog phones to use with SIP VoIP providers.

My work often leads me to evaluate new hardware devices, but I don’t usually post hardware reviews, because the kind of thoroughness you need to apply is something I can’t afford for my blog posts. Sometimes I buy a device just to evaluate it, because I find hardware/feature specs and documentation in general is lacking.

There’s one thing I hate more than lacking specs, though, and it’s misleading specs.

Since I have only VoIP at home, and I regularly use at least two SIP setups, I thought the device would fit well in my rack, taking the place of my current ADSL router, one SIP ATA and one IP phone. I understood the device was not capable of doing Least Cost Routing, but I was more interested in the ability to log into multiple SIP accounts at a time to get incoming calls from each, as I regularly do with softphones, but not with my Grandstream ATA and IP phone.

I thought the device was capable of that, since the feature list printed on the back of the box says:

• Multiple SIP Accounts/Phone Numbers-Freely assignable to Each Phone Port

In that respect, the device seems to work as advertised, except that the TOTAL number of SIP accounts the device is able to support is 2 (two)! So much for the multiple SIP accounts!!!

Worse still, each port can use one or both of the supported SIP accounts for outgoing calls, but if you choose to use both, you can’t sort them by preference (the order is fixed: account 2 then account 1) nor choose a specific one (e.g. by dialing a prefix code). You can mix-and-match incoming calls on the two accounts with the two telephone ports, though.

As such, the only reasonable usage pattern I can think of for the VoIP capabilities of this device is as a substitute for two distinct ATAs, each logged into its separate account, with the added option of being able to receive calls for SIP accounts on both ports.

Don’t get me wrong. All in all the device is all but disappointing. The price tag is very interesting and it could almost be covered by the cost of two SIP ATAs alone. The device features ZyNOS (ZyXEL’s legacy operating system), which in my experience is a guarantee. The NAT router/firewall features, upgradability options and configuration layout are ZyNOS-standard, thus very good. There is no IPSec VPN support, but that it is understandable for a device of this class. What I’d rather see is a four-port Ethernet switch, which is missing.

This does not change the fact that the device does not add anything to my current setup, so I’ve decided to put it back up for sale. Drop me a mail if you’re interested.

Following is a quick list of my turn-ups and turn-downs for the device (by no means meant to be comprehensive).

ups

• interesting feature set
• excellent price/features ratio
• ZyNOS based

downs

• limited SIP account support, esp. for outgoing calls
• misleading (in my opinion) feature description on box and web site
• no Ethernet switch for LAN

* Specifically, my device is a 2602R-61, with ADSL over POTS; there is a 2602R-63 for ADSL over ISDN and a 2602R-67 for ADSL over U-R2.

Andrew Morton, the maintainer for the linux production kernel, warns us that maybe the Linux Kernel is getting buggier. He still has to count the beans, but I have had the same feeling for some time.

I find the following passage worth special attention:

[...] Nowadays, many kernel developers are employed by IT companies, such as hardware manufacturers, which can cause problems as they can mainly be motivated by self-interest.

“If you’re a company that employs a kernel maintainer, you don’t have an interest in working on a five-year-old peripheral that no one is selling any more.” [...]

That’s why we need strong rules and strong men to enforce them.

But no set of strong rules will be enough if we don’t add a lot of attention when vote. Of course I’m talking about the only vote we’re left with: when we vote with our purse.

For more information: Free Software as a social movement