Why are we doing this?
In the last few years, bulk bandwidth prices have plummeted. The fundamentals for managing bandwidth have also changed. Many of our smaller customers, businesses with 50 to 300 employees, are upgrading their old 10 megabit circuits with 50 Megabit links at no extra cost. There seems to be some sort of bandwidth fire sale going on…
Is there a catch?
The only restriction on the Lite unit (when compared to the NE2000) is the number of users it can handle at one time. It is designed for smaller networks. It has all the features and support of the higher-end NE2000. For those familiar with our full-featured product, you do not lose anything.
Here are ten things you can still do with our $999 Bandwidth Controller
1) Provide priority for VOIP and Skype on an MPLS link.
2) Full use of Bandwidth Pools. This is our bandwidth restriction by subnet feature and can be used to ease congestion on remote Access Points.
3) Implement bandwidth restrictions by quota.
4) Have full graphical reporting via NTOP reporting integration.
5) Automated priority via equalizing for low-bandwidth activities such as web browsing, using Citrix terminal emulation, and web applications (database queries).
6) Priority for selected video stations.
7) Basic Rate limits by IP, or MAC address.
8) Limit P2P traffic.
9) Automatically email customers on bandwidth overages.
10) Sleep well at night knowing your network will run smoothly during peak usage.
Are Bandwidth Controllers still relevant?
Dirt cheap bandwidth upgrades are good for consumers, but not for expensive bandwidth controllers on the market. For some products in excess of $50,000, this might be the beginning of the end. We are fortunate to have built a lean company with low overhead. We rely mostly on a manufacturer-direct market channel, and this is greatly reduces our cost of sale. From experience, we know that even with higher bandwidth amounts, letting your customers run wide-open is still going to lead to trouble in the form of congested links and brownouts.
As bandwidth costs drop, the Bandwidth Controller component of your network is not going to go away, but it must also make sense in terms of cost and ease of use. The next generation bandwidth controller must be full-featured while also competing with lower bandwidth prices. With our new low-end models, we will continue to make the purchase of our equipment a “no brainer” in value offered for your dollar spent.
There is nothing like our Lite Unit on the market delivered with support and this feature set at this price point. Read more about the features and specifications of our NetEqualizer Lite in our NetEqualizer Lite Data Sheet.
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