APconnections to Offer Managed Network Access Control with no upfront costs.
LAFAYETTE, Colo., January 6, 2009 — APconnections, a leading supplier
of plug-and-play bandwidth shaping products and the creator of the
NetEqualizer, today announced it would begin offering a network access
control management services with no upfront costs.
The services will be targeted toward networks that typically see a
high degree of turnover among users, such as airports, hotels, and
Internet cafes. For qualifying customers, APconnections will remotely
manage access to Internet connections, leaving clients free from the
worry of regulating and distributing short-term Internet service.
The suggested initial management package will offer users the option
of utilizing a complimentary 128 kbs connection or upgrading to a
high-speed 1-megabit connection for a fee. Upon accessing the network,
users will be directed to a billing page, which will offer the two
levels of service. The content of this page will largely be determined
by the client, including the option to display advertisements from
local vendors, providing the opportunity to further increase revenues.
In addition to clients no longer having to worry about regulating
Internet access, APconnections will also be responsible for all
billing and technical support. On a monthly basis, clients will be
provided with a statement showing income and network usage.
The only cost to clients will be a pre-determined percentage of the
income from customers’ high-speed upgrades. While this service can be
provided for customers with an existing ISP, Internet service can also
be established or expanded through APconnections directly for an
additional fee.
To qualify, clients must average a set number of monthly users. A
one-month trial of the service will be offered at no charge, at the
conclusion of which a service contract must be signed.
For more information, please contact APconnections at 1-888-287-2492
or via e-mail at admin@APconnections.net.
APconnections is a privately held company founded in 2003 and is based
in Lafayette, Colorado. —
Art Reisman www.apconnections.net www.netequalizer.com
303-997-1300 extension 103
720-560-3568 cell
Art Reisman is the CTO of APconnections. APconnections designs and manufactures the popular NetEqualizer bandwidth shaper.
Originally published April 4, 2008
Update Dec 18 , 2008: The RIAA announced a new tactic over the weekend. The ironic twist is that by our accounts the old tactic of vigorous enforcement was working. We were seeing (on the hundreds of networks we support) far fewer bittorrents running when compared to two years ago. I’d estimate the drop to be about 80 percent. I am not sure if our observations were indicative of the industry trend, but by our accounts, pirated material must have been on the decline. We’ll be putting together a more detailed article shortly.
Flash back to the year 2000, Napster hits the scene and becomes the site of choice for anybody trying to download online music.
It is important to understand that the original Napster had a centralized infrastructure. All file transfers happened via the coordination of a central server. Had the music industry embraced this model, they would likely have had a smooth transition from their brick and mortar channel to a soft distribution. Had they only been a bit more farsighted as to the consequences of their actions.
Instead of embracing Napster, the music industry, along with the RIAA (the industry henchman for copyright enforcement), worked to shut Napster down, much the same way they had successfully gone after commercial establishments that play unlicensed music.
There were some smaller label artists that did embrace Napster, obviously looking for untapped market share, but for the most part the industry reacted like a obsolete dinosaur fighting progress out of fear of losing revenue.
I was personally experimenting with downloading music at this time. If Bill Clinton and Obama can admit to illegal drug use, I should be able to confess to one or two illegal downloads without retribution (note: I have since licensed all my music in my library). It wasn’t the free music that attracted me to Napster in 2000, but rather the convenience of getting the tracks I wanted when I wanted them.
It was no coincidence that shortly after the fall of Napster a whole heard of new file sharing techniques showed up. BearShare, Kazaa, Gnutella, Limewire, and Bittorrent all became popular seemingly overnight and once again copyrighted material was being spread all over the world. Only this time it was not coming from a centralized server, but from millions of servers. Now, instead of having one source where music distribution could be tracked, the music industry had a wasp nest of swarming downloads.
Although today there are many paying customers of legal downloads, black market peer-to-peer file sharing still runs rampant, and this time it is not possible to squash the distribution model . Bittorents are themselves not the cause of illegal file sharing, no more than automobiles cause drunk driving. The industry cannot possibly shut down a freely distributed file sharing model without shutting down the Internet itself, and obviously the distribution channel is not guilty of piracy but the people that us it are. Instead, the RIAA has adopted a policy of making examples by tracking down and arresting individual copy right distributors, a daunting and possibly futile task.
For example, it is extremely difficult to get a subpoena to far off corners of the world where governments are concerned with more important matters.
I’ll comment on how the RIAA enforces illegal distribution and the downside of their model in my next posting.
For most IT administrators, bandwidth monitoring of some sort is an essential part of keeping track of, as well as justifying, network expenses. Without visibility into a network load, an administrator’s job would degrade into a quagmire of random guesswork. Or would it?
The traditional way of looking at monitoring your Internet has two parts: the fixed cost of the monitoring tool used to identify traffic, and the labor associated with devising a remedy. In an ironic inverse correlation, we assert that costs increase with the complexity of the monitoring tool. Obviously, the more detailed the reporting tool, the more expensive its initial price tag. The kicker comes with part two. The more expensive the tool, the more detail it will provide, and the more time an administrator is likely to spend adjusting and mucking, looking for optimal performance.
But, is it a fair to assume higher labor costs with more advanced monitoring and information?
Well, obviously it would not make sense to pay more for an advanced tool if there was no intention of doing anything with the detailed information it provides. Why have the reporting tool in the first place if the only output was to stare at reports and do nothing? Typically, the more information an admin has about a network, the more inclined he might be to spend time making adjustments.
On a similar note, an oversight often made with labor costs is the belief that when the work needed to adjust the network comes to fruition, the associated adjustments can remain statically in place. However, in reality, network traffic changes constantly, and thus the tuning so meticulously performed on Monday may be obsolete by Friday.
Does this mean that the overall productivity of using a bandwidth tool is a loss? Not at all. Bandwidth monitoring and network mucking can certainly result in a cost-effective solution. But, where is the tipping point? When does a monitoring solution create more costs than it saves?
A review of recent history reveals that technologies with a path similar to bandwidth monitoring have become commodities and shunned the overhead of most human intervention. For example, computer operators disappeared off the face of the earth with the invention of cheaper computing in the late 1980’s. The function of a computer operator did not disappear completely, it just got automated and rolled into the computer itself. The point is, anytime the cost of a resource is falling, the attention and costs used to manage it should be revisited.
An effective compromise with many of our customers is that they are stepping down from expensive complex reporting tools to a simpler approach. Instead of trying to determine every type of traffic on a network by type, time of day, etc., an admin can spot trouble by simply checking overall usage numbers once a week or so. With a basic bandwidth control solution in place (such as a NetEqualizer), the acute problems of a network locking up will go away, leaving what we would call only “chronic” problems, which may need to be addressed eventually, but do not require immediate action.
For example, with a simple reporting tool you can plot network usage by user. Such a report, although limited in detail, will often reveal a very distinct bell curve of usage behavior. Most users will be near the mean, and then there are perhaps one or two percent of users that will be well above the mean. You don’t need a fancy tool to see what they are doing; abuse becomes obvious just looking at the usage (a simple report).
However, there is also the personal control factor, which often does not follow clear lines of ROI (return on investment).
What we have experienced when proposing a more hands-off model to network management is that a customer’s comfort depends on their bias for needing to know, which is an unquantifiable personal preference. Even in a world where bandwidth is free, it is still human nature to want to know specifically what bandwidth is being used for, with detailed information regarding the type of traffic. There is nothing wrong with this desire, but we wonder how strong it might be if the savings obtained from using simpler monitoring tools were converted into a trip to Hawaii.
In our next article, we’ll put some real world numbers to the test for actual break downs, so stay tuned. In the mean time, here are some other articles on bandwidth monitoring that we recommend. And, don’t forget to take our poll.
APconnections announced today that all NetEqualizer’s purchased between December 10, 2008 and January 1, 2009 will automatically entitle the purchaser to a free Garmin GPS system.
Details:
Qualifying purchasers of NetEqualizer models NE2000-20 and above will receive a Garmin nüvi® 200 (part number: 010-00621-10):
Purchases of NetEqualizer models NE2000-10, NE2000-4, NE2000-2, or any NSS qualify for a free Garmin eTrex® H (part number: 010-00631-00):
To qualify, send us the serial number and purchase date from your NetEqualizer. Requests for Garmin units must be received by Jan 31, 2009. Only NetEqualizer models and NSS upgrades purchased between December 10, 2008 and January 1, 2009 will qualify. Offer good while supplies last. Standard mapping software included as provided by Garmin. All other accessories and mapping software not included.
Background: The NetEqualizer network access control module (NAC), which was released this past September, allows users to re-direct “unknown” or “unauthorized” traffic to a web server hosted on the NetEqualizer. Once redirected, you can have the NetEqualizer perform a variety of actions, including:
1) Authenticating a user via login 2) Allowing the unknown user to create a paid account (using a credit card, for example) 3) Allowing the user to pass through to the Internet without logging in
Did you know that the NetEqualizer network access control module offers several options to generate revenue? One of the dilemmas many of our customers have mentioned is that in order to be competitive they don’t want to charge for their Internet service (hotels, etc.). Well, the cool thing about the NAC module is that you can offer multiple logins with different rate limits. For example, one could be your standard free service and another could be a paid service with higher bandwidth rates.
An additional revenue generating feature of the NAC module is the ability to run advertisements on the login screens. For example, if you’re a hotel operator, even if you’re not charging for Internet service, you could have your guests login on a screen with the logo and name of a local merchant, or anybody that is interested in cross marketing with your hotel.
The NAC module also has customizable splash screens on its default login page that you can edit, thus welcoming your users with whatever content you choose.
For more information about the NetEqualizer network access control module, visit our Web page at www.netequalizer.com or contact us at 1-888-287-2492 or via email at sales@netequalizer.com.
Editor’s Note:We just wanted to comment on this recent press release. This is not just industry hype as we really do test our units. To give you an example, several years ago we had a few units locking up in the field (perhaps one out of hundred) after many hours of continuous use. This type of problem is hard to re-create in a lab, but, unless you can recreate it, there’s very little chance of finding and correcting the issue. However, with the help of Candela Technologies and their LanForge equipment, we were able to recreate the problem quite easily. It was just a matter of accelerating time by increasing loads on the NetEqualizer well beyond what was likely in the real world.
Since that first experience with a load-related latent bug, we have always gone back to Candela for validation testing under load and are happy to say we have caught all service-related bugs with new versions prior to release.
With that said, here is the latest press release:
One-Gigabit NetEqualizer Performs Flawlessly Under Independent Load Testing
USA, FERNDALE, Washington (December 03, 2008) – APconnections – a leading supplier of plug-and-play bandwidth shaping products – today announced test results from the independent laboratory of Candela Technologies.
“APconnections has been coming to us for years to put extreme realistic loads on their equipment,” said Ben Greear, lead engineer, Candela Technologies. “We used our LANforge traffic generator to hit the latest NetEqualizer release with over 1.2 million simulated user data streams within a 60 second window. The NetEqualizer shrugged off
the abuse and continued to pass in excess of 800Mbps of bi-directional traffic. The NetEqualizer successfully ran this torture test for a full 24 hours without a hiccup.”
Eli Riles, vice president of technology at APconnections, was very pleased with the results, noting the importance of the tests to ensuring NetEqualizer’s high level of performance.
“With our higher-end shaping solutions, we cannot afford a problem in the field,” said Riles.
APconnections is extremely grateful to have such a knowledgeable company like Candela Technologies with such impressive simulation capabilities testing its equipment. Their load generator is able to strain equipment well beyond real world situations, ensuring its stability and protecting company and product reputations.
The NetEqualizer is a plug-and-play bandwidth control and WAN/Internet optimization appliance. It is both flexible and scalable. The NetEqualizer’s unique “behavior shaping” technology gives priority to latency-sensitive applications such as VoIP and email. It does it all automatically and so dynamically while improving on other bandwidth shaping technology available.
For more information regarding the New NetEqualizer one-gigabit carrier class traffic shaping solution, please visit www.netequalizer.com.
APconnections is a privately held company founded in 2003 and based in Lafayette, Colorado.
Candela Technologies specializes in emulating network traffic including VoIP and VLANs.
A customer asked us today how the newer Bittorrent methods using UDP will affect our ability to keep traffic in check. Here is our first take on this subject (See the related article “Bittorrent declares war on VoIP, gamers”).
The change from TCP to UDP transfer will have some effect on our methods to throttle bandwidth, however, at
the IP level there is no difference between the two and we have never based our shaping techniques on whether packets were UDP or TCP. The ISP mentioned in the article mentioned above likely uses TCP window-size manipulation to slow downloads. You can’t do that with UDP, and I think that is what the author was eluding to.
The only difference for the NetEqualizer will be that UDP streams are harder to knock down, so it may require a tuning change if it is really an issue. By this, I mean we may have to hit them harder with more latency than our standard defaults when throttling packets.
On a side note, we are seeing some interesting trends with regard to Bittorrent.
When looking at our customer networks, we are just not seeing the same levels of Bittorrent that we have seen in the past (circa 2006).
We believe the drop is due to a couple of factors:
1) The RIAA’s enforcement — The high school and university crowd has been sufficiently spanked with copyright prosecutions. Most people now think twice about downloading copyrighted material.
2) Legal alternatives — The popularity of online purchase music sites has replaced some of the illegal transfers (These also take up bandwidth, but they are not distributed by bittorrent).
The recent trends do not mean that bittorrent is going away, but rather that viable alternatives are emerging. However, while legal distribution of content is here to stay and will likely grow over time, we do not expect an explosion that will completely replace bittorrent.
Editor’s Note:With consumers up in arms about net neutrality, they should also be asking their ISPs for some truth in advertising when it comes their Internet speed and the specifics concerning how and when bursting occurs.
With all the talk of net neutrality and deep packet inspection, we thought it was time to revisit the illusion created by providers offering “burstable” Internet speeds.
What is a burstable Internet speed? Well, it’s a common trick used by providers that lets you temporarily enjoy their highest speed, but then after a certain time period or after a bandwidth quota is reached, you automatically get knocked down to a slower speed.
Generally, your provider leaves the specifics of when this bursting takes place out of their standard literature. Instead, they will likely cite a best-case number when marketing their service. When bursting is mentioned, if ever, it is likely done in the fine print.
But, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways to hold your ISP accountable. Below are some questions that you should ask your Internet service provider to find out exactly what you are paying for.
Is the speed advertised in their marketing literature available all the time, or is that a best-case speed (or burst) that you may or may not achieve on a regular basis?
Do you get charged, penalized, or black-listed for using this higher speed?
How long can you burst for? For example, is a burst one second, 10 seconds, or 10 hours at a time?
Can you get exactly how this bursting feature works in writing?
Can you trade in the bursting feature for a guaranteed sustained top speed that is always on and not considered bursting?
While we can’t promise that these questions will always elicit an upfront, honest and informed response, they’re a step in the right direction. For a more in depth article on the subject and business behind “bursting” you should also check out Bursting Is for the Birds.
As many of you know, the commercial NetEqualizer bandwidth shaper is based on the Linux Bandwidth Arbitrator. From old customers and new, we often get asked what the differences are between the two solutions. Here are a few key points to consider…
1) Time and expertise
Most entities using open source have an experienced technology team with time to burn. Typically, users are university graduate students or eastern European start ups. If you have time and Linux expertise, then building and supporting the open source Linux Bandwidth Arbitrator is an excellent option.
2) Full featured GUI
The GUI and many advanced integrated features are not available with the Bandwidth Arbitrator.
3) Support
You are on your own should there be a problem with the open source technology.
4) Advanced features not in open source
Many of the features in the NetEqualizer are not part of the GPL source code. For example, priority host, bandwidth pools, and VLAN support are not available with the Bandwidth Arbitrator.
We’re sure longtime users of both products can add to the list, but this is a start. For more information about the Bandwidth Arbitrator and NetEqualizer, visit www.bandwidtharbitrator.com and www.netequalizer.com.
Created by APconnections, the NetEqualizer is a plug-and-play bandwidth control and WAN/Internet optimization appliance that is flexible and scalable. When the network is congested, NetEqualizer’s unique “behavior shaping” technology dynamically and automatically gives priority to latency sensitive applications, such as VoIP and email. Click here for a full price list.
Editor’s note:Seems the Canadians are also finally forced to face the issue of deep packet inspection. I guess the cat is out of the bag in Canada? One troubling note in the article below is the authors insinuation that the only way to control Internet bandwidth is through DPI .
Yesterday, the CRTC rendered its decision on ISP’s traffic shaping practices. It announced that it was denying the Canadian Internet Service Providers’ (CAIP) request that Bell Canada, which provides wholesale ADSL services to smaller ISPs across the country, cease the traffic-shaping practices it has adopted for its wholesale customers.
“Based on the evidence before us, we found that the measures employed by Bell Canada to manage its network were not discriminatory. Bell Canada applied the same traffic-shaping practices to wholesale customers as it did to its own retail customers,” said Konrad von Finckenstein, Q.C., Chairman of the CRTC.
Moreover, the CRTC recognized that traffic-shaping “raises a number of questions” for both end-users and ISPs and has decided to hold a public hearing next July to consider them.
As the Internet continues to grow and true speeds become higher, video sites like YouTube are taking advantage of these fatter pipes. However, unlike the peer-to-peer traffic of several years ago (which seems to be abating), YouTube videos don’t face the veil of copyright scrutiny cast upon p2p which caused most users to back off.
In our experience, there are trade offs associated with the advancements in technology that have come with YouTube. From measurements done in our NetEqualizer laboratories, the typical normal quality YouTube video needs about 240kbs sustained over the 10 minute run time for the video. The newer higher definition videos run at a rate at least twice that.
Many of the rural ISPs that we at NetEqualizer support with our bandwidth shaping and control equipment have contention ratios of about 300 users per 10-megabit link. This seems to be the ratio point where these small businesses can turn a profit. Given this contention ratio, if 40 customers simultaneously run YouTube, the link will be exhausted and all 300 customers will be wishing they had their dial-up back. At last check, YouTube traffic accounted for 10 percent of all Internet Traffic. If left completely unregulated, a typical rural ISP could find itself on the brink of saturation from normal YouTube usage already. With tier-1 providers in major metro areas there is usually more bandwidth, but with that comes higher expectations of service and hence some saturation is inevitable.
If you believe there is a conspiracy, or that ISPs are not supposed to profit as they take risk and operate in a market economy, you are entitled to your opinion, but we are dealing with reality. And there will always be tension between users and their providers, much the same as there is with government funds and highway congestion.
The fact is all ISPs have a fixed amount of bandwidth they can deliver and when data flows exceed their current capacity, they are forced to implement some form of passive constraint. Without them many networks would lock up completely. This is no different than a city restricting water usage when reservoirs are low. Water restrictions are well understood by the populace and yet somehow bandwidth allocations and restrictions are perceived as evil. I believe this misconception is simply due to the fact that bandwidth is so dynamic, if there was a giant reservoir of bandwidth pooled up in the mountains where you could see this resource slowly become depleted , the problem could be more easily visualized.
The best compromise offered, and the only comprise that is not intrusive is bandwidth rationing at peak hours when needed. Without rationing, a network will fall into gridlock, in which case not only do the YouTube videos come to halt , but so does e-mail , chat , VOIP and other less intensive applications.
There is some good news, alternative ways to watch YouTube videos.
We noticed during out testing that YouTube videos attempt to play back video as a real-time feed , like watching live TV. When you go directly to YouTube to watch a video, the site and your PC immediately start the video and the quality becomes dependent on having that 240kbs. If your providers speed dips below this level your video will begin to stall, very annoying; however if you are willing to wait a few seconds there are tools out there that will play back YouTube videos for you in non real-time.
They accomplish this by pre-buffering before the video starts playing. We have not reviewed any of these tools so do your research. We suggest you google “YouTube buffering tools” to see what is out there. Not only do these tools smooth out the YouTube playback during peak times or on slower connections , but they also help balance the load on the network during peak times.
Bio Art Reisman is a partner and co-founder of APconnections, a company that provides bandwidth control solutions (NetEqualizer) to ISPs, Universities, Libraries, Mining Camps and any organization where groups of users must share their Internet resources equitably. What follows is an objective educational journey on how consumers and ISPs can live in harmony with the explosion of YouTube video.
NetEqualizer CTO Art Reisman has written several opinion pieces over the years regarding the use of software patents. You might be surprised to find out that he is not a big fan of them and refuses to file any Patent claims to protect the NetEqualizer technology (whose roots are in open source)
Below are links to several analysis articles written by Art for Extreme Tech Magazine over the last couple of years.
According to APConnections CTO Art Reisman, the accusations of network traffic impairment leveled at AT&T and Comcast by Vuze are serious, troubling, and worthy of further investigation, but also mostly anecdotal at present.
APConnections CTO Art Reisman weighs in with an insider’s look at what the patent process is really like. What was the jury in the recent Vonage-Verizon case thinking?
If you’ve ever tried to connect to your office’s wireless network only to find that the Internet service has slowed to a crawl, you may be running up against a phenomenon known as the “hidden node.”
Deep Tech: If you’ve ever tried to connect to your office’s wireless network only to find that the Internet service has slowed to a crawl, you may be running up against a phenomenon known as the “hidden node.”
Insider Art Reisman, CTO of bandwidth shaper firm APConnections, reveals how how even the common speed tests used to evaluate your broadband connection may be spoofed by ISPs. Think you’re getting your full rated speed? Think again.
A recent rumor hitting the blogosphere has the world buzzing with the possibility that a Chinese company backed with large sums of money has cracked the Skype encryption codes and is poised to offer a competing product that can send and receive Skype calls. Art Reisman says he’s dubious.
A recent rumor hitting the blogosphere has the world buzzing with the possibility that a Chinese company backed with large sums of money has cracked the Skype encryption codes and is poised to offer a competing product that can send and receive Skype calls. Art Reisman says he’s dubious.
Art Reisman of APConnections thinks that market forces will take care of Vonage far sooner, and more effectively, than any efforts to block its services.
NebuAd had a great idea show ads to users based on content and share the revenue with ISPs that sign up for their service. What is wrong with this Idea ? I guess customers don’t like people looking at their private data using DPI hence the lawsuit detailed in the article below. The funny thing is we are still hearing from customers that want DPI as part of their solution, this includes many Universities , ISPs and alike. I think the message is clear: Don’t use Deep Packet Inspection unless you fully disclose this practice to your customers/employees or risk getting your head nailed to a table.
———————————————————————–
From Zdnet Nov 11, 2008
NebuAd, the controversial company that was trying to sell deep-packet inspection technology as a means of delivering more relevant ads, has already had most of the life sucked out of it. Now, a class action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco today, could put the final nail in the coffin.
Five tips to look for when testing your network speed
By Eli Riles
Eli Riles is a retired Insurance Agent from New York. He is a self taught expert in network infrastructure. He spends half the year traveling and visiting remote corners of the earth. The other half of the year you’ll find him in his computer labs testing and tinkering with the latest network technology. For questions or comments please contact him at eliriles@yahoo.com.
In the United States, there are no rules governing truth in bandwidth claims, at least none that we are aware of. Just imagine if every time you went to a gas station, the meters were adjusted to exaggerate the amount of fuel pumped, or the gas contained inert additives. Most consumers count on the fact that state and federal regulators monitor your local gas station to insure that a gallon is a gallon and the fuel is not a mixture of water and rubbing alcohol.
Unfortunately in the Internet service provider world, there is no regulation at this time. So it is up to you the consumer to ensure you are getting what you are paying for.
Network operators deploy an array of strategies to make their service seem faster than others. The most common technique is to simply oversell the amount of bandwidth they can actually handle and hope that not all users are active at one time.
It is up to the consumer, who often has a choice of service providers, Satellite, Cable, Phone company, wireless operator etc, to insure that they are getting what they are paying for.
We at Network Optimization news want to help you level the playing field so here are some tips to use when testing your network speed.
1)Use a speed test site that transfers at least 10 megabits of data with each test.
Some providers will start slowing your speed after a certain amount of data is passed in a short period, the larger the file in the test the better
2)Repeat your tests with at least three different speed test sites.
Different speed test sites use different methods for passing data and results will vary.
3)Try not to use speed test sites recommended by your provider.
Or at least augment their recommended sites with other sites.
Enough said.
4)Run your tests during busy hours typically between 5 and 9 p.m. in the evening, try running them at different times.
Often times providers have trouble providing their top advertised speeds during busy hours.
5)Make sure you test your speed in both directions.
The test you use should upload as well as download information.
To find the latest speed test sites on the network, we suggest you use a Google search with the terms:
“test my network speed”
Dig down deep in the list of results for more obscure sites.
Lastly, remember the grass is not always greener. If you find your speeds are not always up to their advertised rates don’t be alarmed – the industry is not regulated in the US and speeds can vary for a variety of reasons. Your provider is likely doing the best job it can while trying to stay profitable.
Good Luck!
Eli Riles
Created by APconnections, the NetEqualizer is a plug-and-play bandwidth control and WAN/Internet optimization appliance that is flexible and scalable. When the network is congested, NetEqualizer’s unique “behavior shaping” technology dynamically and automatically gives priority to latency sensitive applications, such as VoIP and email. Click here for a full price list.
Editors Note: We expect to go higher than 1 gigabit and 12,000 users in the near future. This is just a start.
APconnections Announces Fully Equipped One-Gigabit NetEqualizer Traffic Shaper for $8500
LAFAYETTE, Colo., Nov. 7/PRNewswire/ — APconnections, a leading supplier of plug-and-play bandwidth shaping products, today announced a one-gigabit enhancement to their NetEqualizer brand traffic shapers. The initial release will handle 12,000 users and sustained line speeds of one gigabit.
“Prior to this release, our largest model, the NE-3000 was rated for 350 megabits,” said Eli Riles, APconnections vice president of sales. “Many of our current customers liked our technology, but just needed a higher end machine.The other good news is that our current NE-3000 platform will be able to run this new version with just a software upgrade, no forklift required.”
Future releases are in the works for even higher speeds and more users, thus solidifying APConnections as the price-performance leader in the WAN optimization market place.
In its initial release, the one-gigabit model will start at $8,500 USD. For more information, contact APconnections at 1-800-918-2763 or via email at sales@netequalizer.com.
The NetEqualizer is a plug-and-play bandwidth control and WAN/Internet optimization appliance that is flexible and scalable. When the network is congested, NetEqualizer’s unique “behavior shaping” technology
gives priority to latency-sensitive applications, such as VoIP and email. Behavior based shaping is the industry alternative to Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). It does it all dynamically and automatically, improving on other bandwidth shaping technology available.
APconnections is a privately held company founded in 2003 and is based in Lafayette, Colorado.
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NetEqualizer News Blog 
How the Music Industry Caused the Current Bittorrent Explosion
December 21, 2008 — netequalizerBy: Art Reisman
Art Reisman is the CTO of APconnections. APconnections designs and manufactures the popular NetEqualizer bandwidth shaper.
Originally published April 4, 2008
Update Dec 18 , 2008: The RIAA announced a new tactic over the weekend. The ironic twist is that by our accounts the old tactic of vigorous enforcement was working. We were seeing (on the hundreds of networks we support) far fewer bittorrents running when compared to two years ago. I’d estimate the drop to be about 80 percent. I am not sure if our observations were indicative of the industry trend, but by our accounts, pirated material must have been on the decline. We’ll be putting together a more detailed article shortly.
Flash back to the year 2000, Napster hits the scene and becomes the site of choice for anybody trying to download online music.
It is important to understand that the original Napster had a centralized infrastructure. All file transfers happened via the coordination of a central server. Had the music industry embraced this model, they would likely have had a smooth transition from their brick and mortar channel to a soft distribution. Had they only been a bit more farsighted as to the consequences of their actions.
Instead of embracing Napster, the music industry, along with the RIAA (the industry henchman for copyright enforcement), worked to shut Napster down, much the same way they had successfully gone after commercial establishments that play unlicensed music.
There were some smaller label artists that did embrace Napster, obviously looking for untapped market share, but for the most part the industry reacted like a obsolete dinosaur fighting progress out of fear of losing revenue.
I was personally experimenting with downloading music at this time. If Bill Clinton and Obama can admit to illegal drug use, I should be able to confess to one or two illegal downloads without retribution (note: I have since licensed all my music in my library). It wasn’t the free music that attracted me to Napster in 2000, but rather the convenience of getting the tracks I wanted when I wanted them.
Well, the RIAA succeeded in getting an injunction against Napster and shutting them down in February 2001.
This would turn out to be a costly mistake.
It was no coincidence that shortly after the fall of Napster a whole heard of new file sharing techniques showed up. BearShare, Kazaa, Gnutella, Limewire, and Bittorrent all became popular seemingly overnight and once again copyrighted material was being spread all over the world. Only this time it was not coming from a centralized server, but from millions of servers. Now, instead of having one source where music distribution could be tracked, the music industry had a wasp nest of swarming downloads.
Although today there are many paying customers of legal downloads, black market peer-to-peer file sharing still runs rampant, and this time it is not possible to squash the distribution model . Bittorents are themselves not the cause of illegal file sharing, no more than automobiles cause drunk driving. The industry cannot possibly shut down a freely distributed file sharing model without shutting down the Internet itself, and obviously the distribution channel is not guilty of piracy but the people that us it are. Instead, the RIAA has adopted a policy of making examples by tracking down and arresting individual copy right distributors, a daunting and possibly futile task.
For example, it is extremely difficult to get a subpoena to far off corners of the world where governments are concerned with more important matters.
I’ll comment on how the RIAA enforces illegal distribution and the downside of their model in my next posting.
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