857 ADSL Router disaster

SandyYoung · ‎09-09-2011

I have just purchased some Cisco kit and the 857 Router is beyond all belief. It arrived with no manual, no CD, and a USA power cable!

Better still was the discovery that to set it up one requires an RS232 port - something most of us abandoned with relief many years ago and which is no longer provided on most PCs and laptops. Then there is the need to use Hyperterminal or the like - last seen on the Mac 20 odd years ago and no longer supported in Windows 7. But best of all is the command line interface software which might as well be in Serbo-Croat for all the sense it makes.

Considering the price of the item - £174 - it is worse than woeful that a company of Cisco's size can be selling these in 2011. The rest of the world has moved on to stuff which is easy to set up.

I suspect it will be thrown over a bridge into the River Clyde this weekend and I will purchase a sensible product.

Alexander Maroukian · ‎09-09-2011

Hi,

Maybe you should have asked the seller before purchase . It sound more like a statement, not as a question. Some of the things you have mentioned as cons are driving some people to use this hardware. It will be nice if you give it to someone istead of throwing it in the river , maybe he/she will enjoy it.

Regards,

Alex

SandyYoung · ‎09-10-2011

Alex,

Thanks for your reply.

I bought this router because Cisco kit is usually very good. I've been involved in IT since the days of build-your-own single board computers and have a lot of experience in all manner of hardware and software stuff. Normally I can fight my way through unusual problems but I didn't expect this level of complexity.

Yes, I do understand that for some users the ability to get right into the guts of the modem will be important. However, there are those who just wish to connect to an ADSL line. Irrespective of usage, though, an RS232 interface and command line language is so out-of-date it's not true.

Your advice regarding the Clyde is sound and I'll probably sell this on Ebay with a suitable warning!!!

Kind regards,

Sandy.

Alexander Maroukian · ‎09-10-2011

Sandy,

I would suggest if you need something just to connect and keep with cisco you can try linksys (which is now part of cisco) x3000 or x2000 models. These two models do posses the things you need without the need of CLI, RS232 and terminal, you can enjoy the web interface only:).

Kind regards,

Alex

jimmysands73_2 · ‎09-10-2011

I think RS232 is quite common, if your in the field, as common as a notebook itself. If you PC does not have one, you can always by a USB-RS232 cconverter cable...maybe 20 bucks at the most.

There is a great need to use hyperterminal (or really any emulation program, putty, securecrt, etc).

>>The rest of the world has moved on to stuff which is easy to set up.

They are the ones also that call themselves network engineers because they can use SDM also w/o a freakin clue as to what happens behind the scenes

Seriously though, buy a converter cable, download a putty or the like, and you'll be good to go.

Good luck

SandyYoung · ‎09-10-2011

Jimmy,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I am quite familiar with RS 232 - I suspect I spent years of my life battling with it, using breakout boxes with rows of LEDs and patch cables. Software handshake, hardware handshake, baud rates, parity - everything but witchcraft and maybe that too. When USB appeared - about 10 years ago? - the world became a happier place. And yes, I did try a USB to RS 232 converter on my laptop and the least said about that the better. The simple fact is that RS 232 is dead and gone and there is no excuse for anyone having that on a product in 2011.

I do accept my lack of skills on network protocols. IT communication is just another area of computing ripe for change and the sooner all the techno-guru stuff is washed away the better. I've lived through a computing revolution and the stuff that sells is usually that which works. In my case, whilst battling with network stuff using bygone tools might be fun, what I'm trying to achieve is to connect my new HP Touchpad to the web and look for a specific application. To that end I decided to flood a room with wi-fi and to do that I bought some Cisco kit.

Clearly buying 'the best' - certainly the dearest - was a mistake and instead of Cisco, in future, I'll look for a company who are living in this century. The 857 should come with a Government Health Warning!

Anyway, that's my rant for the evening. Not directed against you or anyone else here.

Kind regards,

Sandy.

Peter Paluch · ‎09-11-2011

Sandy,

I believe that any of your complaints does have a point, and then again, I could argue with each and every of them as I personally do not find them limiting in any way, although I understand that for a person that just starts working with Cisco devices, many approaches may seem stuck in the nineties. I won't engage in this kind of discussion, however, as this written form of debating over an obvious sore spot is too limiting and we could very well end up in misunderstanding and not accepting each other's opinions.

My suggestion is to not influence yourself too much by first-contact impressions - that would be too shallow an opinion, unworthy of a person of your wealth of experience in the field. If you would like us to assist you in configuring your device then please show us your current state of configuration and explain your needs - and I or other friends here will be more than willing to get your router up and running. I am sure you will be satisfied by its functionality.

I sympathize with your initial embarassment but please understand that these forums are driven mostly by people external to Cisco and we are focused on helping other people to get things working - and we are very, very good at it. Venting your frustration here is also helpful - I did the same quite a few times as well - and we all accept it, but as long as you are focused only on commenting your bad experience without engaging into constructive cooperation with us to get your device up and running, our options are extremely limited. As much as we want to, we have no direct influence whether Cisco will exchange the RS-232 for an USB console on all its devices (the command line interface will not be going away and that is a good thing - instead, for quite a few years, there are Java-based GUI utilities available like Security Device Manager or Cisco Configuration Professional allowing you to configure the device using just a WWW browser and following some wizard's recommendations).

Best regards,

Peter

SandyYoung · ‎09-12-2011

Peter,

Thank you for your reply. That's a very kind offer and I'll take you up on it as soon as I can extract what is currently in the router. The GUI utilities sound promising. I also need to download and print out a manual.

Again thanks,

Sandy.