transact vpn- vapourware private network

[Bob Edwards]

Thanks for responding Michael - good to know that at least one person in
your organisation still has a clue.

I think I am to blame for the "Chinese Whispers" of referring to TransCity
as CityLink. I guess I got confused as to which city I'm in :-) At the time
I was meeting with the VPN marketing gurus at TransACT, I was so dismayed
at the explicit statement that the p2p service would be limited through
at 1Mbps channel on the router that I plain forgot to write down the 
marketing name of the p2p service I had been told about.

I just hope that you are right in informing us that it will not be limited
other than by our local plans (eg. 64k up/256k down or whatever).

I guess the next question is: can TransACT sell us a 256k (0.256Mbps)
symmetric plan? That still uses our Set Top Box? If so, how much?

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.

Michael Smarsz wrote:
> 
> >I have been waiting since September last year (many on this list will
> >remember that I organised for Robin Eckermann and others from TransACT
> >to address CLUG, primarily on this very issue).
> 
> I recall, in fact, I was also present at that CLUG meeting.  I am simply
> one of the workers with no real impact on direction.
> 
> >Some will remember that Michael Smarsz from TransACT wrote to this list
> >only 2 weeks ago on this very subject. This gave me just enough
> confidence
> >to wait a little while longer. Note that in his e-mail (attached below)
> >he specifically refers to a "free p2p network", but then later,
> referring
> >to "TransCity" it becomes "The p2p network". Possibly TransACT are
> planning
> >two p2p networks, a "free" one and "TransCity". Who can tell.
> 
> I can understand the confusion...  I will try and simplify it.
> 
> 1 - The *free p2p network* is called TransCity.  All uploads/downloads
> within this network have no cost.
> 
> 2 - I've not heard of any of TransACTs products being called Citylink.
> I presume that it is just a Chinese-whispers version of TransCity.
> 
> 3 - There is a product that TransACT are trying to sell to cover the WAN
> connections of businesses.  The product is /called/ TransVPN
> (http://www.transact.com.au/forbusiness/index.asp).  Personally, I don't
> believe that it is anything like a VPN and the VPN part of the name
> should be changed to avoid confusion.  It is essentially a seperate
> Virtual Router (or even VLAN if you will) for those customers.  From
> what I can tell, it is to alleviate the risk of skiddies/haxors from
> getting at these customers all the time.
> 
> Like I said previously, I have tried to get an official statement to
> respond to all of this, but alas, all of our cries seem to fall on deaf
> ears.  I will try again though.
> 
> There was a recent management mind-meld and according to a few,
> TransCity was a hot topic.  The current person driving the project is
> trying now to ride that wave of interest to get it pushed through.
> 
> The TransCity network has completed (from what I've been told at least)
> it's proof of concept stage.  There will be some additional
> content/services installed before it gets announced.
> 
> TransACT, until now, have been reluctant to dedicate equipment and
> manhours to the TransCity project because it is not directly revenue
> raising (yeah, I know, value add...  preaching to the converted here).
> 
> The network design has indeed hampered the way that TransCity was/is
> implemented.  Early discussions with ISPs on our network proved that it
> was to be an uphill battle to get it working.  In it's early days, it
> won't be as "user-friendly" but there are already plans on what to do to
> change that.
> 
> All of us who have worked on TransCity want to see it go live, it
> couldn't be soon enough.
> 
> I will see what I can do.
> 
> Michael
> 
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