On Thu, 3 Feb 2000, Jeff Mcadams wrote:
However they aren't listening to most people who complain... and they definitely aren't fixing certain problems. 3com connectivity issues and v.90 problems aren't fixed and haven't even been modified to my knowledge... Ascend is still kicking 3com's butt in v.90 connects. Also Support Contract issues seem to elude them... they cannot grasp such simple thinking as give a little and gain a lot.
I really think (and have even had some folks, which will remain nameless here, within 3Com agree with me) that the problem is really one of beaurocracy. 3Com is listening, and is working on the problems...just not even close to the speed at which we think it should/could be done.
From the discussions that I've had with folks about the support contract issues...its seems that 3Com is trying to fix everything in one fell swoop rather than taking little steps. My opinion is also that 3Com tends (again, this will probably sound familiar to many of you) seems to be making decisions on where to go largely without the feedback from customers. While they are moving...and maybe mostly even in a forward direction...without feedback and guidance from customers its just terribly easy for 3Com to take a step to the side or back and not realize it.
Part of the problem is the fact that 3Com/USR allowed themselves to get into contracts which would kill their ability to really promote things to the smaller companies. Part of the reason (for example) why Quad modems have to have an X2/V.90 key is because of a contract 3Com signed with a company (name escapes me but AT&T comes to mind). I was told that the contract states that all Quad modems that use X2/V.90 be licensed to use it. Those that aren't licensed to use the protocol are not authorized to do X2/V.90. This is why the keys are enforced. Much in the same way, big telcos are required to pay for support on a per chassis basis mostly because there are so many people who could possibly administer them that there is no way that 3Com could effectively charge a single dollar amount that would cover them for the ILEC's chassis's and still offer a price competitive solution to small ISP's. In order to cover itself, 3Com had to make contractual agreements with those big companies to make sure that they wouldn't "go under." I have suggested a couple of times that 3Com work on a support contract which would be offered per company specifically to people who had taken the time to receive 3Com training. That support would be available only to those people listed on the contract who had been certified to have taken and completed the training to some reasonable standard. At contract renewal time, they could be required to take a refresher course or something. That way, at least then they'd know that they weren't dealing with 200 people who'd never seen what TCM looked like and had no vested interest in learning the chassis enough to make sure that they wouldn't need to be calling ever time they wanted to busy out a modem for example. 3Com would be able to make money on the training and the support simply because people who would be calling in on those support contracts would already have some minimum level of training - hence send them straight to level two people or at least handle it a bit more professionally than "unplug your card, set switch 6 on, then plug it back in" before even bothering to find out what the problem is (been there, done that :( ). I now work for an ISP which has over 330,000 subscribers and there are some tech's out there (within our company) which don't know TC's well at all. I am beginning to see why there's a charge per chassis on contracts. Oh, by the way, our company does not have a support contract. Are you kidding? We purchase enough chassis per week that would cover us for an entire year of free warranty support. It's not their fault that they don't know it - they just haven't been well exposed to it. What should 3Com do if we were to ask for a single support contract for our entire company? Now that wouldn't be fair to the little guy if they didn't base it somehow on the number of chassis's we owned... It might be a bit more fair if the contracts were time based. I will leave that up to 3Com. Kevin E-Mail: s1kevin@tims.net Web: http://users.sota-oh.com/~s1kevin/ Unsolicited advertisements processing fee: $50 subject to change without notice - To unsubscribe to usr-tc, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe usr-tc" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message.