There's a bright side to the dark side of the economy—used equipment can be purchased cheap. We discuss and define brokers and auctions and detail what they can offer your ISP.

by Drew Bird of www.crossnodes.com [July 25, 2001]

If you could see my latest vehicle purchase, an '82 VW Jetta, you'd know that I am not the person to talk to when it comes to making informed purchases of used equipment. The red car which I have affectionately named 'old blue' is truly a testament to my inability to get a good deal.

So you can imagine my trepidation when a colleague suggested that we buy a router for the office from a broker specializing in used equipment. My fears, however, were unfounded. As I discovered, when it comes to networking equipment, used will most certainly do.

There are any number of brokers who are selling used networking equipment on the Internet. These corporate cast offs are not four-year-old routers with a dent in the case, but are more likely to be the former property of a gone bust dot-com.

It's not broken at the broker
According to John Eggert of Computer Connection Corp., a Minneapolis-based broker, the demise of the dot.com has brought an influx of high quality networking devices onto the market, many of which have seen only a few months of use. John was able to offer me just about any product from the major equipment manufacturers, all at considerable discounts from the list price—in some cases up to 80%! Not only that but they, like many other equipment brokers, are able to provide the same services as dealers of new equipment including assisting with equipment specification, customization, and even basic configuration tasks.

Because I'm a pessimist, I was looking for the drawback. The only one I could find is that warranties tend to be shorter when buying used. Of the brokers I spoke to, warranties ranged from 30 days to six months. One even offered to sell me an extended warranty, but only after explaining why I shouldn't buy it.

The attraction of buying used networking equipment is that, generally speaking, it either works or it doesn't. When buying from a broker, even the shortest warranty period is normally more than sufficient for any gremlins to show themselves. Because of their lack of moving parts (apart from cooling fans), networking equipment tends to have a much lower failure rate than other computing devices making it a prime candidate for used sales.

The awkward nature of the auction
If even a broker's price is too high, another option is to buy your device from an Internet auction site such as eBay, but such purchasing practices are not for everyone. Units that come from a private sale on an auction site may work perfectly, but they can also have an assortment of ills as well. Anyone who has completed the awkward task of replacing the ROM BIOS chips in a router will confirm that the procedure requires the patience and dexterity of a nun with a passion for needlepoint, and the chances of cracking the flimsy sockets are relatively high. Such a problem would be undetectable without a close visual inspection of the unit which is not a feasible option when buying from an online auction.

Painting the picture that the large numbers of auction purchases are faulty would be unfair indeed. The vast majority of vendors are selling good quality equipment that operate flawlessly, but there will always be the possibility of an unscrupulous seller.

Furthermore, buying from an auction requires that you, yourself, fully understand what you are buying. In addition to the features of the device you are buying, you must consider versions of firmware or, if applicable, software that are used on devices such as routers and switches.

Updates for these items are surprisingly expensive, and in some cases may even be hard to find. Cables are another often-overlooked factor. The specialized cables that some devices use are incredibly expensive if bought separately from the unit they were originally supplied with.

At the end of the day, the suitability of a used router, or any other piece of networking equipment, will be a matter simply of whether you can find what you need and are willing to take the risk of a short or non-existent warranty.

If you are completely familiar with model numbers, BIOS revisions, and embedded software versions then buying from auction may be for you. If, on the other hand, you are ignorant to IOS and befuddled by BIOSes, a previously owned device from a broker may be a better choice. If a full warranty and the backup and support of a registered dealer is top of your list then that's the way to go.

As with everything else in life, you pays your money and takes your chances.

Drew Bird (MCT, MCNI) is a freelance instructor and technical writer. He has been working in the IT industry for 12 years and currently lives in Kelowna, BC., Canada.

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Online resources:
	CrossNodes
	EarthWeb