<rant on> I only partly agree with you. It should depend on the level of support required. Software updates for "a work in progress" should be free. Period. We paid for the hardware and software to run them. We should get updates that keep them running plain and simple. Setup support is and should be free. Advanced troubleshooting support should not be free as long as the documentation on how to do the troubleshooting is made availalble to the customer. When the telco is blaming your equipment for not working correctly when they changed an option in the switch which suddenly makes it not work and they lie to you about nothing changing in the switch, a support contract ought to be available if not at least some type of charge by incident method. If the problem proves out to be 3Com's, then they should eat the charges. If the problem is obviously user error, then the user should pay. If it's not clear as to whose fault it is, then they should split the bill. How do you administer that? It's a nightmare. What's fair and what's done aren't always equal. In this case, I agree with many who have said that 3Com is over charging the little guy with a few chassis's for support. Come on - if an ISP has one or three chassis, the amount of support given is not significantly more than that of one with 20. Why can I say that? Experience has shown us that as we gained more chassis's, so did our knowlege of how to operate them. We went from calling them at least once a week to a point where we are seriously considering not renewing our contract due to the fact that the front line engineers often just don't know as much as we do about the equipment and spending 2 hours on the phone with someone who may or may not know how to help just isn't worth it any more. Granted, on rare occasions we may get a Ron Childs quality person on the phone but that is very rare. There are a few really good people in the ISP support group but they are uncommon enough and our knowlege has grown enough that we're not sure that the support is required for anything other than software upgrades and notices about them. <rant off> In the meantime, we'll see what happens... Kevin On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Clint R. Sparks wrote:
Let me go on record saying this before I get hate mail, I do not believe it is proper for any equipment manufacturer to charge for support. We do not charge our customers for support and they only pay us $20 a month so I am against them charging for support contracts. However it is a game and I run a business and if having and needing one is how the game has to be played then I get one. No equipment manufacturer cares about whether any of us likes it, they are a business and in it for the bottom line. I don't like it when telcos charge for installs on PRI and T1 circuits as I feel ordering it should be enough but they do and hide behind their tariffs to justify it so we pay it. I had GTE recently charge me for a premise visit after I ordered two new PRI's and this is on top of paying the normal $600 install for each PRI, I called them on it and they said we had to come out didn't we? I said I would like to see you install a new circuit without coming out. Face it, all small ISP's are being screwed by any big business anyway they can find.
You've not worked with this equipment for very long, have you? ;)
3 Years and I have had my ups and downs.
Seriously though...a large number of the people on this list are quite capable of supporting ourselves on this equipment largely. We need hardware coverage of some specific cards...for IgLou, we need to cover DSP's, we don't need to cover Arc's really since we have some spares, and we *CERTAINLY* don't want to cover quads since they're pretty much disposable at this point.
I agree we to do not need 3 Coms help except when hardware fails and we need replacements.
But with cisco, you can get a different level of coverage on each piece of equipment if you like...try doing that with 3Com. 3Com won't even honor it if you have different levels of coverage *at different sites* (as Paul Farber just pointed out...and has happened to us in the past...even after 3Com gets the money for it...that's borderline illegal there, breach of contract).
Before I had a contract all kinds of problems getting 3 Com's help wanted to kick Total Controls out door but with a contract no complaints, keep in mind I have the full support contract and I always get the help I need or want. I guess my case is an exception to the rule from what you are saying, but it works for me so I cannot complain. If it did not I would complain believe me. One thing I do now when I do need to call 3 Com for support is I ask for the same person which helps a lot as he knows who I am which expedites things as he knows when I call we have already tried everything.
Clint
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