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I have a Netgear product that has several different numbers printed on the bottom of the box: TA, S/N, MAC.
I know MAC stands for Media Access Control, S/N stands for Serial Number. But what does "TA" stand for?
These TA numbers have been mentioned more than once for the past 10 years in various Netgear discussions across the web. But I am probably the first person to ask the question, the right question, what is this... TA?
So I got info on TA, it's a internal total assembly part number that NG used to use. Not used or printed anymore. Nothing that users can use or be aware of.
Very good question! In this case it is the WNCE2001. But this is only one of many Netgear products that carry a "TA" number. So the question remains. What is a TA number?
For a more modern and sophisticated device example that uses a TA number, have a look at the Netgear Nighthawk R7000 and this 3 year old article (published 2019/03/20) on how to determine if it can be flashed or not.
Any news on this? No? So no one knows? I got an email notification today (with a broken link) saying "Check it out! Your topic recently received a reply!" But that was just a reference to my own reply I guess. It's so silly, it came 7 days after the fact.
So for the last time, what the AG, BG, CG is the freaking TA on the NG? You have the model number(s) now, can you answer the question now? The only thing I hate less than LED indicators that are not documented are acronyms that are uncommon and undocumented.
I have written a new reply. Where is it? It appears to have been queued for approval and it has then been approved but I don't see it in this topic. I will post it again.
What would something like that look like? What's the format? Would it be the same as for a MAC address? Something like A0:B1:C2:D3:E4:F5? This TA number looks something like 123-45678-90A1. That's 12 characters, just like a MAC address, but with very different separators (and in all the wrong places).
So I got info on TA, it's a internal total assembly part number that NG used to use. Not used or printed anymore. Nothing that users can use or be aware of.
So it stands (stood) for "Total Assembly". As in number of units produced? Is it a combination of a part number and a counter (how many, and what was produced)? What was this used for?
I have this number for example: 100-14685-01R8
What does this mean? Does the "R8" mean revision 8 for example? Is this unit number 14685?
These numbers appear to contain some useful information, for the curious minds who like to tinker with their devices. This is the main reason I think that "TA" numbers were in common use on web forums discussions.
This seems like a way to uniquely identify a device. But isn't that the purpose of a serial number?... although serial numbers are usually non-descriptive and randomized.
