Companies that can afford to 'lose' equipment...

[Koldov]

Just a bit of a rant really...

 

A while ago we had an bandwidth upgrade from our supplier and this needed new kit to be installed (router/firewall etc.) and apart from a couple of teething problems it went ok (new kit didn't quite fit in the cab and some settings needed changing at their end).

 

However, the installer left all the old equipment and said (I think) that 'someone' would arrange collection.

 

Maybe 2 years later I've still got 2 massive boxes in the corner of my room, in the the boxes are:

 

CISCO - ASA 5505 V09 ADAPTIVE SECURITY APPLIANCE

CISCO - 1941 INTEGRATED SERVICES ROUTER

CISCO - ISR4431 INTEGRATED SERVICES ROUTER

 

Not sure why we've got 2 routers, maybe one is even older (as I don't deal with the network I don't pay a great deal of attention as to what exactly is what in the cab as long as it works).

 

Nobody seems interested in coming to collect them and maybe they are EOL, old and worthless, but these things would cost for me to buy them and yet the companies seem to able to 'lose' them and not care...

 

Obviously they're no good to me, probably password protected and I guess still the property of the respective companies (so no Ebay I guess), but our network is quite old and slow and I would love someone to 'lose' a couple of decent switches my way.

 

I've just had the pleasure of finding out our servers are routed to 100Mbps switches!

[Davit2005]

I cannot speak for the other Cisco routers but the ASA 5505 is quite old but not sure it is actually end of life yet. Cisco site suggests last date of support is August 2022.

 

I still have 2 at home but getting the new version of software is typically Cisco enterprise i.e. no support contract no software updates.

 

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/asa-5505-adaptive-security-appliance/eos-eol-notice-c51-738642.html

[paulkerton]

It's not that they can afford to lose it, more so it's probably not worth it to pick it up in the scheme of things.

Though I'd be tempted to tell them to pick it up or expect you'll charge them rent for the space being taken up!

[Boredguy]

We've got our old router that was replaced last September still sat on a box waiting for the ISP to arrange someone to come and collect, since they were unable to do so at the time due to covid restrictions (even though they could send BT engineer out to do the work, and it was only picking a box up)... We've also got 2 BT LES units sat waiting from over 4 years to get collected... think they might end up in the next recycling collection as BTo don't seem to want them.

[Dos_Box]

I've worked on projects where we've swapped out first gen kit with the next iteration of the equipment and one problem has always been 'what the hell do we do with all this old junk?'.

Much of said 'junk' was often higher end (Cisco etc.) and in some cases we had to pay for equipment to be recycled. Admittedly, some of this was in the days before the popularity of second user/refurbished market, but it was a big problem then when you had a couple of thousand pieces of not quite old networking gear to get rid of.

[hardtailstar]

When I worked in a primary school, the external company would take the old kit even though it was bought and paid for by the school.

 

They soon stopped doing that when I found out that they were property of the school.

[Koldov]

Thing is, what to do with it?

 

I'm not sure this is our property as it was at the front end, routers and firewall etc.

 

Probably not easy (for a n00b) to hack into and reset (and covered in stickers saying 'property of' the ISP), so couldn't even really Ebay it...

 

But by 'eck it would gut me to skip it!

[JATSO]

In the past I have said to the the original supplier, Do you want it back or should I dispose please reply by such a date?

 

if I get no answer, then its deemed scrap and goes with rest of the WEEE kit when its recycled along with anything else including CCTV units that always get left behind.

[mikeprice]

Many years ago - in the 1990s when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth - I had 4 different devices on my desk

 

a 7801 terminals emulator

a proper 7301 terminal (which was 1970s vintage

a 386SX PC running DOS and Windows

 

and a Dacoll terminals that was the most beautiful and sexy electronic device I had ever seen

it had a fabric/metal/ contoured screen over the CRT screen to block that damaging radiation that we all worried about before WiFi/3G/4g/5G came along

and it blocked reflection problems and visibility from other people

and the keyboard was silky smooth and your finger just drifted over it

and although it was a basic text based terminal - the resolution was amazing

and the speeds always seemed to respond faster than the actual serial port speed

it was amazing

never found the like

until I met Mrs mikeprice - clearly - just to be clear - don't want any misunderstanding

 

anyway

back to the point

after a while

 

so the 386SX and the wonderful amazing and silky smooth Dacool terminal were actually supplied as demo version so we could assess them

 

 

after many years they asked for them back

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

$deity I miss her

[FN-GM]

We changed a WAN contract. And I am left with over 20 Cisco routers (still supported). Going to come in handy for my CCNP renewal.

[Andrew_C]

In the past I have said to the the original supplier, Do you want it back or should I dispose please reply by such a date?

^^This.

If you do not collect the following [equipment] by [date] we will arrange disposal at your expense.

[free780]

It comes down to the cost of disposing the equipment. If it gets let in your server room the supplier ISP etc doesn't need to pay for disposal.

So dispose and invoice them or state your intentions to dispose.

[Koldov]

Yeah I guess so, thanks for all the advice!

 

But this must be on someone's inventory list somewhere, does it just get written off?

 

It just blows my mind that this is so prevalent for these businesses... Multiply the answers here by all the schools and businesses around the world and there must be thousands and thousands of pieces of kit just going in the skip (I mean being recycled with WEEE certification)... These are actually still decent, serviceable pieces of equipment! When everything in technology moves on so quickly and everybody has to have the latest shiny thing, it's easy to see why IT (and its consumers) is such a wasteful industry.

 

Good job we are doing our bit for the environment by trying to fix 12 year old computers to run Windows 10 for little Timmy...

 

About 15 years ago I used to work in a warehouse (hadn't really found my geek calling in employment back then, but used to tinker) and when we had a refit for a new WMS (Red Prarie) instead of our AS400 (Navigator) system, they left behind all sorts of old equipment (most of which I had no idea about) including full rolls of CAT 5e... one of which I still use today for little cable runs...

[pete]

We give them notice of our intention to recycle if not collected, then we recycle after $date.

 

But frankly the ISP / RBC are rank amateurs compared to VendorA and VendorB who sent us evaluation hardware (~5 desktops and 5 laptops) but never responded to the (repeated, ultimately via recorded delivery) "OK, we've finished testing - can you send a courier to pick it up?" communications.

 

Near as I can guess a salesperson sent out the evaluation kit but never recorded they had done so and then left the company.

[TechMonkey]

Don't forget, they haven't 'lost' it, it was used and they are done with it. They will have worked out the cost of the kit and that cost would be worked into any contract so it will have been paid for in full. There is minimal cost benefit to them to pick it up, they would have store it, keep track of it and then either redeploy or dispose of it. If there was value in it, you can bet they would have picked it up or the engineer would have taken it with him.

[Koldov]

Yeah I guess so, I've seen it on a smaller scale (probably not that small actually) with Virgin Media.

 

Years ago when we upgraded they said they would want their router and TV box back, but it never happened (got a nice HDD out of it for those days)...

 

Now, anyone want to PM me how to hack and reset a CISCO router...?

Edited May 12, 2021 by Koldov

[DavR]

When I worked for an LA team, we did a migration to new Internet connections for something like 70 schools. It was a change of supplier, so the new guys wanted nothing to do with the old Extreme Networks routers. I'm not aware of one single router being collected by the original company, when the theoretical resale was hundreds per unit. That all went for scrap, or worse, is still sat in store rooms.

 

Virgin are getting better - they actually chased me to get my Hub3 returned when I upgraded to Hub4 recently. I'd already chucked it in the WEEE at work assuming they wouldn't! I can only assume that there's a new policy due to how many of them will end up in landfill if they don't come back for them, I can't imagine they're reusing them.

[mikeprice]

When I worked for a big business I had a PC on evaluation for a short time

It was quite a good PC when we got it - loaded up with the software we were supposed to evaluate

 

after 9 or 10years we still had it and it had been relegated to a terminal emulator tester

then we got a letter asking for it back and threatening to charge us at the full price of a new one if it was not returned!!

 

They actually went to expense of sending a courier to pick it up even when we offered to keep it for free (no WEE stuff in those days and we chucked stuff out quite often)

[Danp]

I ordered a single order of 2 x leisure batteries for my campervan conversion. A couple of days later 4 batteries turned up. I waited a couple of days and let them know, was a little disappointed that they were not that bothered but did arrange collection of two of them. I'm sure I could have kept quiet and kept them, but I didn't need 4 and would have felt uncomfortable selling two of them.