[AusNOG] Sensitive Freight Shipping

[Alastair Johnson]

On 1/14/15 7:13 PM, Matt Richards wrote:
>
> Even the Courier companies have trouble with that.
>
> We shipped a NAS and a couple of routers to India via DHL in August 2013
> so that they'd be there when I was there in December. They got stuck in
> customs. I ended up taking a new router with me as checked baggage.
>
> Fast forward to November 2014, we get a call from some scrap metal guy
> in Delhi asking if we wanted to buy our equipment from him.

Shipping to India is a hassle. There are extensive duties payable on 
used telecommunications equipment that regularly cause things to get 
held up. We typically only ship new to India because of this - and we've 
had customs inspectors tell us ex-factory equipment is 'used' because it 
had scratches visible on the linecards (from final factory QA!).

That said, we use a mix of DHL, FedEx, and UPS for expedited shipments, 
and direct cargo shipments brokered by Kuehne+Nagel for bulk/large 
shipments. Nothing like getting 9t of routers across the world for a 
show in 48 hours. They all work pretty well, and as long as the 
commercial invoices are in order, tend to clear customs relatively okay 
in most parts of the world.

However-- we have in-house packing expertise, and do not skimp on 
packing. Our traveling showcase machinery long ago had spinning disks 
replaced with SSDs due to the prevalence of failed disks when being 
shipped. Pack everything to cope with getting soaking wet as well - we 
had some equipment sitting in a parking lot in Prague due to the hotel 
loading dock being too small to accept it; under a catering tent; during 
the floods in June 2013. About 10cm of standing water in that parking lot...

AJ