What make was the actual kit he was flogging?

Word from Cisco is there are quite a few dodgy 18xx series routers in the UK at the moment, which were made by a Chinese factory after it had its contract pulled. Apparently they've just kept making the routers and are re-using serial numbers. Nice!

...ban Cisco kit; as it could contain backboors for USA snooping?

Maybe it was the absence of a working backdoor that first alerted the authorities to the problem. :)

The whole world is fooling themselves by buying Cisco gear at the kind of prices cisco sells . If Cisco is so confident about their support and say that as a reason for 10 times the prices of a equivalent component , they should separte their support prices from product & try selling it .

You buy a Huawei GBIC for 35$ and even with regular 80% discount , still the Cisco GBIC costs 100$ . Wonder why the entire world is so stupid and I wish Cisco can respond to this .

Strange cisco selling this gear to unsuspecting African Governments with corrupt dealers for 10-20 % Off from their Price list .

Wish someone can investigate Cisco's unfair trade practices .

So "Teh Peoples' Router and Networking company" (Or whatever the hell the ex-cisco plant is calling itself) churns out un registered cisco hardware, without paying cisco for the IP. And Cisco HAVEN'T been able to stop it?

Despite clear breaches of contract, infringement of IP and patent, all the other things that US lawyers really start to drool over, this factory just keeps ticking over, unmolested, churning out 18xx series kit.

Presumably whoever's in charge is confident that US law can't touch them, and that they'll make more ripping off former partners than they'll lose from other parties who won't go anywhere near them... I wonder how many other fabrication companies could pull the same stunt?

This could be a serious problem for companies such as Apple or Dyson, who have cheerfully sent their entire manufacturing base over the the PRC... You could pay your fanboi tax to apple and buy one of their ipods, or you could buy an identical device, with an identical UI, for a small fraction of the price. (Or you could pay a bit more and get a knock off of a media player that actually works, the choice is yours.)

Of course this type of cloning has been going on for years, but I don't think I've heard of former production lines being used to manufacture "counterfeit" rather than "cloned" stock before.

Still, anything that fucks over the wankers who've been dropping British Workers like hot bricks can't be all bad.