Why a One-Room West Virginia Library Runs a $20,000 Cisco Router
February 26th, 2013Via: Ars Technica:
Marmet, West Virginia is a town of 1,500 people living in a thin ribbon along the banks of the Kanawha River just below Charleston. The town’s public library is only open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. It’s housed in a small building the size of a trailer, which the state of West Virginia describes as an “extremely small facility with only one Internet connection.” Which is why it’s such a surprise to learn the Marmet Public Library runs this connection through a $15,000 to $20,000 Cisco 3945 router intended for “mid-size to large deployments,” according to Cisco.
In an absolutely scathing report (PDF) just released by the state’s legislative auditor, West Virginia officials are accused of overspending at least $5 million of federal money on such routers, installed indiscriminately in both large institutions and one-room libraries across the state. The routers were purchased without ever asking the state’s libraries, cops, and schools what they needed. And when distributed, the expensive routers were passed out without much apparent care. The small town of Clay received seven of them to serve a total population of 491 people… and all seven routers were installed within only .44 miles of each other at a total cost of more than $100,000.
