T-Mobile’s Binge On is a service that allows access to specific content without that content counting toward the user’s monthly data cap – zero rating. The service does optimize the video for 480p (DVD quality) which isn’t too bad given the general size of most smartphones and tablets. That said there is a discussion going on within the community that T-Mobile’s Binge On violates net neutrality. I didn’t originally agree that Binge On violates Net Neutrality since the service is completely optional, you don’t need to use it if you don’t want. It’s pretty clear that T-Mobile is being a disruptor in the cellular market. As a customer with three teen aged daughters the service is a big hit with them.

You can realize my surprise when this IT colleague told me that T-Mobile is actually throttling all video traffic regardless of whether or not the content provider is participating in the Binge On program. I quickly found the article from Jeremy Gillula titled, EFF Confirms: T-Mobile’s Binge On Optimization is Just Throttling, Applies Indiscriminately to All Video.  After this revelation I now feel that T-Mobile is violating net neutrality rules by impeding traffic from content providers that aren’t participating in the Binge On program when the Binge On feature is active on the phone and not communicating that fact to their customers.

It appears to me that T-Mobile wasn’t being truly transparent in this case. And of course the feature is optional but it is enabled by default, but of course it is enabled by default. It wouldn’t serve T-Mobile anything if it was opt-in and not opt-out. In a story from Jon Brodkin titled, T-Mobile’s Binge On: When throttling may not break the rules, John argues that because the feature is optional that it may not violate net neutrality.

Are you a T-Mobile customer? What do you think about Binge On?

Cheers!

We count downtime in minutes and seconds not hours or days and so we need to ensure that we have access to the necessary tools to maintain the infrastructure. I’ve personally gone years without needing console access to a few specific sites but that once or twice that I quickly needed access easily justified the capital and operating costs of having the solution available. It’s not difficult to design highly available and redundant network, server and facility infrastructures. However, even with all that redundancy you can find yourself desperately seeking that console access at the most inopportune times (2:00AM comes to mind).

I’ve really taken a liking to the Opengear products. They have multiple models including 1, 3, 4, 8, 16 and 48 port options and offer access via Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G LTE and v.92 modem. You can actually send the 3G unit an SMS text message to wake it up, so it’s not constantly online drawing needlessly against your monthly 3G bandwidth allocation, and they all support Dynamic DNS registration so you don’t need a static public IP address. The latest models also support USB, so you can connect to those Cisco USB console ports.

Here are my notes for configuring an ACM5003-W, the model we’re deploying in our edge closets. I have yet to figure out how to make use of the wireless interface as a back-up to the LAN interface. Apparently the current software doesn’t support that configuration but hopefully that will change in the future.

You’ll be able to connect to the Opengear console server on port 1 using 115200-8-N-1.

The default username is root while the default password is default.

Once you are logged in the following commands will configure the Opengear via the CLI interface. You can also launch the web interface to verify your configuration at a later point in time.

We start the process by configuring the name and location of the console server. The last command below will prompt you to change the root password – I’ve had issues where the change doesn’t seem to be working.

config -s config.system.name=ts-og1-rack2.testlab.acme.org
config -s "config.system.location=ACME Testlab (Rack 2)"
config -P config.system.password

Let’s set the IP addressing. If we were using the wireless LAN interface as opposed to the Ethernet interface any references below to wan would be replaced with wlan.

config -s config.interfaces.wan.address=10.1.255.11
config -s config.interfaces.wan.netmask=255.255.255.0
config -s config.interfaces.wan.gateway=10.1.255.1
config -s config.interfaces.wan.dns1=10.1.16.40
config -s config.interfaces.wan.dns2=10.7.16.40
config -s config.interfaces.wan.mode=static
config -s config.interfaces.wan.media=Auto

Let’s enable NTP and set the date and time on the device;

config -s config.ntp.enabled=on
config -s config.ntp.server=tick.acme.org
config -s config.system.timezone=US/Eastern

Let’s set the date and time to something close, NTP will give us the precision we want.

# date Format is MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]
date 121009472013.00
/bin/hwclock --systohc

Let’s set the serial ports. In this case we will skip port 1, the port we are using it to configure the device. If we need all three ports we can configure it but the changes don’t take effect until we issue a “config –a”.

# This is the port we are currently using to configure the Opengear so let's skip it right now.
#config -s config.ports.port1.speed=9600
#config -s config.ports.port1.parity=None
#config -s config.ports.port1.charsize=8
#config -s config.ports.port1.stop=1
#config -s config.ports.port1.label=’Other Device’
#config -s config.ports.port1.loglevel=0
#config -s config.ports.port1.protocol=RS232
#config -s config.ports.port1.flowcontrol=None
#config -s config.ports.port2.mode=portmanager
#config -s config.ports.port2.ssh=on
#config -s config.ports.port2.telnet=on
#config -s config.ports.port2.webshell=on

Let’s configure serial port 2 and 3;

config -s config.ports.port2.speed=9600
config -s config.ports.port2.parity=None
config -s config.ports.port2.charsize=8
config -s config.ports.port2.stop=1
config -s config.ports.port2.label='Juniper SRX210H'
config -s config.ports.port2.loglevel=0
config -s config.ports.port2.protocol=RS232
config -s config.ports.port2.flowcontrol=None
config -s config.ports.port2.mode=portmanager
config -s config.ports.port2.ssh=on
config -s config.ports.port2.telnet=on
config -s config.ports.port2.webshell=on

config -s config.ports.port3.speed=9600
config -s config.ports.port3.parity=None
config -s config.ports.port3.charsize=8
config -s config.ports.port3.stop=1
config -s config.ports.port3.label='Other Device'
config -s config.ports.port3.loglevel=0
config -s config.ports.port3.protocol=RS232
config -s config.ports.port3.flowcontrol=None
config -s config.ports.port3.mode=portmanager
config -s config.ports.port3.ssh=on
config -s config.ports.port3.telnet=on
config -s config.ports.port3.webshell=on

Let’s create a user account called admin and set the proper privledges;

config -s config.users.total=2 (assuming we already have 1 user configured)
config -s config.users.user2.username=admin
config -s config.users.user2.description=AdministrativeUser
config -s config.users.user2.port1=on
config -s config.users.user2.port2=on
config -s config.users.user2.port3=on
config -s config.users.user2.groups.group1='admin'
config -s config.users.user2.groups.group2='dialin'
config -s config.users.user2.groups.group3='pmshell'
config -s config.users.user2.groups.group4='ftp'
config -s config.users.user2.groups.group5='users'
config -s config.users.user2.groups.group6='pptpd'
config -P config.users.user2.password

Let’s set the SMTP settings, not sure that we will really use them though;

config -s config.system.smtp.server=smtp.acme.org
config -s config.system.smtp.encryption=none
config -s config.system.smtp.sender=opengear@acme.org
config -s config.system.smtp.subject=Opengear Alerts

Let’s set the SNMP settings;

config -s config.system.snmp.protocol=UDP
config -s config.system.snmp.trapport='162'
config -s config.services.snmp.syslocation='ACME Testlab (Rack 2)'
config -s config.services.snmp.syscontact='ACME Technology Team'
config -s config.system.snmp.address='10.1.1.125'
config -s config.system.snmp.community='public'
config -s config.services.snmp.rocommunity='public'
config -s config.services.snmp.rwcommunity='private'
config -s config.system.snmp.version=2c

Let’s enable the various system services;

config -s config.services.http.enabled=on
config -s config.services.https.enabled=on
config -s config.services.telnet.enabled=on
config -s config.services.ssh.enabled=on
config -s config.services.snmp.enabled=on
config -s config.services.pingreply.enabled=on
config -s config.services.tftp.enabled=on
config -s config.services.webshell.enabled=on

Let’s enable the modem (if we have one);

config -s config.modem.ddns.provider=none
config -s config.modem.flow=Hardware
config -s config.modem.ppp.enabled=no
config -s config.modem.speed=9600

The last step we must take is to activate and sync all the changes to flash memory.

config -a

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU DIDN’T SKIP THE STEP ABOVE – VERY IMPORTANT

When you are at the $ or # shell prompt you can launch the Port Manager Shell with the command;
pmshell

You should be give a list of ports you can connect to such as the following;

# pmshell
2: Juniper SRX210H 3: Other Device
Connect to port >

You only need to enter the number for the selection you would like.
The break command is ~. or ~? for help

If you don’t have any out-of-band access I’d suggest that you make that a new year resolution!

Cheers!