Hi Lewis. I think I'm the PATTON guy you were referring to.... I can tell you from my experience, and those on the pug@patton.com list is almost universally great. There are essentially no complaints across all the users. Occasionally you'll get someone with a beef somewhere, but then they RECIEVE a call FROM Patton. (read: Patton actually calls them) and they resolve the problem. Patton is fantastic, on a company standpoint, their policies, the individual employees willingness to help and the product itself. Software updates are free for life, period. Telephone support is free for life, period. Mailing list support is free for life, period. The hardware / firmware is stable as well. The people running the last production code (version 3.3.6) V.90 code from December have essentially zero problems. The only problems we had on our evaluation unit was that we were trying their V.92 code, and it's just not ready for prime time. It's still beta code and there is no firm date in sight for a real release. Even though, it still worked pretty well for the most part. We ran it for 87 days without a reboot / lockup / or any substantial problem, except that the beta code didn't support some modems & some features, so we found connection problems with some V.92 client modem, but mostly the $25 softmodems. For us, the real problem was the lack of MPPC or STAC compression as well as the unfinished state of the V.92 software. We had an Evaluation unit and it just came down to us hitting the pay or return deadline. I wasn't prepared to pay with the uncertainty of the V.92 situation, so we returned it. I know it seems strange for a product we decided not to buy at this time, but I give it my highest recommendations in all areas, except of course for those couple week points which were 'deal breakers' for us. Todd Chamberlain support@inet2000.com ----- Original Message ----- EDITED FOR BREVITY From: "Lewis Bergman" <lbergman@abi.tconline.net> Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 8:22 AM
I know people have bragged about Cisco, but I have to tell you. I thought Cisco's router pricing and support were lousy. I switched because of it. I now an very happy with an Imagestream router that cost me tens of thousands less for the 8 T1, dual ethernet, 48 volt model I have. It is so much more capable and easier to configure. Comes with free software upgrades for life. Has all the routing and firewalling you could ask for.
That is one reason I was sad to hear of the guy's problems with Patton. Sounded a lot like that. But, alas, I'll take fewer problems over free upgrades. Anyone know if Patton is better now?
Anyway, Just to balance things out, Cisco is far from a great alternative, at least in my experience, even at what is supposed to be their core competancy. Maybe my experience is atypical though. -- Lewis Bergman Texas Communications 4309 Maple St. Abilene, TX 79602-8044 915-695-6962 ext 115
_______________________________________________ USR-TC mailing list USR-TC@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/usr-tc