At an ADI Expo recently, Len Friedman, Hikvision executive and long-time industry guy, told me he is disappointed with the aging process. Well, me too.  One of the great surprises of getting older is finding out about body parts I didn’t even know I had. After pounding through miles of airport terminals on my many road trips to perform fiber optic and IP networking training, I was dismayed to find that my right heel felt as if hundreds of needles were stabbing into it with every step.

Now I come from a tradition that normally shuns going to the doctor. According to my father you only go to a doctor if a.) a bone is sticking out or b.) you’ve lost more than a pint of blood.

But after hobbling around for a few days that got old, so it was off to the quickie emergency care location in beautiful Wicker Park in Chicago. I had also developed a spreading poison ivy infection so I figured I’d kill two issues with one visit.

After saying that steroids would fix my flaming skin patches, the doctor and I moved on to my foot pain.  She said they would X-ray my foot and see what’s going on.

I was escorted to the X-ray room and handed off to a technician. He proceeded to get me on the table, twist my foot the way it shouldn’t go and say, “Hold this position.” So, I held still in a wildly uncomfortable position and waited. And waited. Finally, I asked the tech what was the problem. He pointed to one of those old black and purple Wi-Fi routers and said he was waiting for the X-ray machine to connect to the network. Finally, he got a connection and shot the X-ray.  

The diagnosis? Plantar Fasciitis of the right foot. The cure? Well, there really isn’t one. Stretching can help reduce the pain, along with foot inserts and “sensible” shoes.  

The show(s) must go on and I continue to limp through the airports, but now I notice all of the other folks who are walking like me. I am certainly not alone with these problems.

I did learn one important thing from this experience that relates to our industry: Even brand new facilities like the emergency care center I visited can have obsolete technology that is slowing down their business. Low voltage contractors should be checking with all of their customers, especially residential and small businesses, to ensure they have the best possible Wi-Fi bandwidth and coverage.  Those old black and purple boxes have got to go. Sell your customer a supercharged Luxul WXR-3150 combination router/Wi-Fi access point that provides the big wireless data pipe that comes with the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard, along with a blizzard of customer features. This device is a drop-in replacement for obsolete Wi-Fi routers, and the beauty of Luxul products is that they are not readily available on the internet, i.e. the customer cannot shop you on their smart phone while you’re talking to them. Any devices found on Amazon are from third party vendors at very high prices, leaving you plenty of room for profits when you purchase Luxul from your distributor.