Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router

Quote from jplayland : Look at the picture of the library. I would bet they have less than 5 computers and the only special need they would have is to tunnel back to the main library system for the area. A well selected $100 or less router from Staples is totally realistic. Hell, I wouldn't have a problem if they bought two or three to be safe and have a backup.

You've clearly never worked in IT. Who will install the backups? Are you going to hire an IT guy at a 1 room library? Bring in a contractor every time something goes wrong, which will lead to substantial down time? You can't manage a router like this like you manage the one in your house. It's different in a professional environment. I'd bet they have a contract with Cisco to implement, maintain, and service that server, and while I agree that a high end router is not necessary, neither is a consumer level low-end router.

Quote from shhaggy : You've clearly never worked in IT.

that is just the thing..... thanks to the abundance of google geniuses out there, they all think they are I.T. experts because they can google, twit and FB. most have never had to work with jumpers, configure mscdex or manually configure irq settings. (they will probably have to google that)

God bless sequestration.