Although the jury’s still out on how many enterprises are extensively using video (or plan to this year), Cisco would certainly like you to believe its ascent is as certain as the rising and setting of the sun.  And why not? More powerful networks = more ritzy equipment for them to sell, right?

In the event that I’m eating my cynical words over the next few months, here’s an entertaining if not ominous look at what Cisco sees as the fate of enterprises that cheap out on video over WLAN:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/InWWHKsG8bg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Angry? Want to stick it to the man? Feel a riot coming on?

Take a deep breath, put down the bricks and baseball bats, and fire up your Internet browser of choice to join the underground movement.

We spotted a Save Dynamips group pop up yesterday on Facebook, started by French networking student Benoit Goncalves in support of Dynamips, a free Cisco IOS emulator that seems to be the target of these IOS licensing changes. As I write this, it only has 18 members but sure looks like they’re rolling out the welcome mat for new recruits.

(Photo of riot police outside 2008 Republican National Convention courtesy of/politely borrowed from this flickr account)

The Packet Life Community Lab can be used for six-hour stretches to play with Cisco 1841s, 2811s, Catalyst 3550s, and ASA 5505s.

Users access the lab via Telnet and SSH sessions that are bridged directly to the physical console of each device by an Opengear CM4116, an open source console manager.

A full topology documentation of the lab is available on the Packet Life blog, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at the lab. While Packet Life Community Lab is completely free to users who register, donations to support the lab are accepted.