Fluke NetTool
Sending a network technician out to do battle in the information technology jungle without a network and cable tester is like sending a soldier to fight a war without giving him a rifle. Unfortunately, the high cost of portable testing tools has made it difficult for a manager to justify purchasing more than one or two of these essential items, forcing technicians to operate in a "first come, first served" mode. Can this battle be won?
Fluke Networks thinks so. Its latest offering, the NetTool, provides managers with a low-cost alternative to pricey test equipment. The NetTool is small in size and low in cost, but it isn't short on features.
We recently put the NetTool through the most grueling evaluation we could imagine: We dropped it in the hands of our installation and repair technicians for a few weeks. They didn't want to give it back.
NetTool is a cable, network, and PC configuration testing device wrapped up in a compact 3- x 5-inch package weighing less than half a pound. Equipped with a crisp, backlit LCD screen, the NetTool is fully menu driven. There are only six keys on the unit: four navigation keys, an Enter/Select button, and the power switch. Our field testers found the simple user interface to be one of the NetTool's best features.
The NetTool can be connected to the network or device under test in two ways: single-ended or inline. In single-ended mode the NetTool is plugged directly into a network jack using a standard Ethernet cable. The inline mode is a unique feature of the NetTool, and is extremely useful when troubleshooting PC problems on a switched network. The inline mode allows the NetTool to be connected between the device under test and the Ethernet wall jack, which allows the technician to monitor communications between the PC and the network, a task that is normally quite difficult on a switched network.
As useful as the inline mode is, it was also the source of our biggest complaint. Fluke Networks doesn't enable the inline port by default. To activate inline functionality, you have to pay an extra AU$950. Given that the hardware is already in place - all NetTools come with both ports, but the inline functionality is disabled in software - it seems unreasonable to require users to pay a hefty premium to gain access to this feature.
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