The issue is that we're peons and we don't have a right to this
information, even if it is helpful and extremely relevant to our
technical concerns.
I would like to see that attitude go away. I have an ZyXEL ISDN modem
with a built-in D-channel protocol analyzer. I can make a call and it
will log the activity, then afterwards displays it in full color with
all of the bit fields broken out. It cost around $400. For what the
PM3 costs, I want real-time stats on everything. I want it to give me
transcripts of its conversations with the switch, live as they happen.
I want it to tell me every time there's a framing error, bad CRC,
retrain, or hangup. I want it to tell me what's going on in the DSPs,
what constellations are in use, detailed reports during modem training
as the line is analyzed.. basically, anything this box already has to
know in order to operate should be available.
I won't use most of it.. I won't know HOW to use most of it. But give
it to me. Stop pretending I'm an end-user.. I'm a network technician.
I won't cry or complain if it's hard or complicated. I have the
source code to my operating system. The PM3 doesn't even have a
decent amounts of blinkenlights on it. People who buy these sorts of
things like to see LCD displays and flashing lights.
That's the end of my little rant. The PM3 does a pretty decent job,
and if you turn on massive amounts of debugging, and spend a few days
figuring out what it means and tracking down the relevant
documentation, you can actually get a lot of that info.. but I can't
convince myself to put that much effort into understanding an
undocumented, "don't use this" interface. It could change or go away,
and the effort would have been for nothing.
-- Christopher Masto Director of Operations NetMonger Communications chris@netmonger.net info@netmonger.net http://www.netmonger.net"Good tools allow users to do stupid things." -- Clay Shirky - To unsubscribe, email 'majordomo@livingston.com' with 'unsubscribe portmaster-users' in the body of the message. Searchable list archive: <URL:http://www.livingston.com/Tech/archive/>