Subject: (usr-tc) v.92 for quads update

From: Jeff Mcadams <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 16:19:29 +0000

OK...

My email that I sent regarding the quads and v.92/v.44 to Al and Irfan,
my sales rep. and my VAR rep.

This was in response to my sales rep's message about the disposition of
v.92/v.44 and what trade-ups were available.

I have gotten no substantive feedback regarding this issue yet.
Previous messages of mine have made it to some other 3Com/CommWorks reps
and were apparently forwarded to my reps with the implication that they
need to keep me in line.  :)

Let me assure any 3Com/CommWorks folks reading this (unofficially, of
course, since 3Com/CommWorks doesn't officially monitor this list
anymore).  If it weren't for Tom Goodman and George Ebert and their
efforts, I would have quit using Total Control gear *LONG AGO*.  Tom and
George have gone way above and beyond the call of duty to try to keep me
happy with Total Control gear, unfortunately, they've been hamstrung by
3Com/CommWorks policies regarding equipment EOL'ing, trade-ups, and
support contracts.

To be quite honest, I think I was rather restrained in not expressing my
thought that Al Huefner should have been fired years ago for personally
being the number 1 reason for customers switching from Total Control to
other Access Server vendors.  As I understand it, Al is personally
responsible for the support contract policies and Terms and Conditions
that we've all screamed and yelled about for the past 3 years.

Anyway...here we go...my entry into the "Let's piss off 3Com/CommWorks"
contest.  :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also sprach [email-masked]
>TCS 4.5 is where CommWorks will deliver v.92.  Only HiPer DSPs and
>Multi-Span cards will have the v.92 support.  We have a Quad rebate
>program that turns each port into $25/port which is $100/card or $1,200
>on a 48 port chassis.

>http://commworks.com/svprovider/products/rac2/tc1000_v92.html

>http://commworks.com/svprovider/programs/total_control_eds/promos.html

I find this humorous:
"With a simple software upgrade to V.92/V.44"

OK, So, with 2,162 total dial-in lines, you want me to spend $136,800(*)
dollars to upgrade my equipment to be able to handle v.92/v.44.  You
call this a "simple software upgrade?"

The EOL'ing of the quad modem cards is absolutely reprehensible, and I'd
like to hear from Irfan or Al if they could come up with *ANY* good
reasons that I shouldn't ditch my 3Com gear and go with Cisco's trade-up
program and get *MUCH* better support of not-bleeding-edge-new gear.

This in addition to your extortionate Terms and Conditions and pricing
of support contracts to begin with.

I'd like to hear some sort of response from Irfan or Al since my last
messages to either of you have seem to fallen on deaf ears.

(*) Based on needing to upgrade 17 chassis worth of quad modems,
utilizing 5 double-play trade-ups from the promo page from above, plus
another 12 double-play purchases not eligible for the double-play
trade-up.  This assumes a 30% discount off of the list price posted on
the promo page.  I don't know if we typically get 30% off list price or
not, but I know that's typical for Cisco gear.  I would be surprised to
find that the discount on 3Com gear is any more than that.  If the
discount is less, then the figure looks even *worse* for 3Com.
-- 
Jeff McAdams                            Email: [email-masked]
Head Network Administrator              Voice: (502) 966-3848
IgLou Internet Services                        (800) 436-4456

------------------------------------------------------------------------

-
 To unsubscribe to usr-tc, send an email to "[email-masked]"
 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.

---

From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 20:06:54 +0000

You are WAY to forgiving to these people.... everyone else is GIVING
v.92/v.44 away.... whay would you wnat to pay for it?

EOL the quads was a Microsoft tactic.... if you can't sell to new ISP's
for the old ones to upgrade for no apparent reason.

I liked the quads but in some POPs they didn't work as well as the DSP's
or Patton gear.

Other than you hge expense of replacing 2K+ ports, I would ditch the quads
also.... there are to many other good alternatives out there.

Paul Farber
Farber Technology
[email-masked]
Ph  570-628-5303
Fax 570-628-5545

-

---

From: Mark Thornton <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 22:16:43 +0000

Hmmm... where to start. As far as I know only Patton is giving away the V.92
upgrade. Cisco and Lucent are promising reasonably priced upgrades. Patton
is an unknown quantity with a very small installed base, so it remains to be
seen what will happen to them if they grow to the number of installed ports
of 3Com. Support is expensive, but it can be controlled. I question who 3Com
has been selling their product to. If they are that clueless, they have been
sold the wrong product.

I still believe it is possible that there is a technical reason the quads
cannot be upgraded. If that is the case it proves the point that the upper
management of 3Com is dumber than board of they have been
unwilling/unable/unknowledgable to transfer the information to their
customers. Funny thing is, it isn't that hard to believe that might be
true...

We still have good luck with our quads. I wouldn't be interested in dumping
them if it weren't for the fact that we need to reduce the required space
for our modems. That does bring up a problem I have with Patton. My current
requirements are for 17 spans, not 16 and not 20. I don't want to
mix'n'match boxes, yet I don't want to pay for something I'm not using. That
is part of the problem in making the argument for a move to Patton.
Scalbility is not as fine as the 3Com gear.

Mark Thornton
San Marcos Internet, Inc.
512-393-5300

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Farber" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: (usr-tc) v.92 for quads update

-

---

From: Charles Sprickman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 01:55:36 +0000

Hey, at least you got a response.  I sent a very tame letter to those
folks and didn't get a word back...

Lucent is also offering a decent trade-in program as well, covers just
about anything, all the way back to the old Multi-Tech modem banks...

I couldn't justify moving before, but our dialup is declining, and it
seems it might be worth it to trade it all in for 1/2 the ports and a
small cash outlay.  I've been speaking with a friend who codes for the
ASxxxx series DSP chips at Cisco, and he's promised a quick route to
support should we move there :)

Charles

-

---

From: Greg Kemnitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 07:02:26 +0000

Hi...

I'm somewhat puzzled by the behavior I'm getting with TCM 7.0.7... I'm in 
the process of upgrading to TCS 4.0 from TCS 3.6.  I've installed TCM 
7.0.7, and then upgraded the NMC in one of the chassis to the hm070108 
version.  I next tried to upgrade the HiperDSP, but TCM software update 
reports "card id is not found in the device id list".  I tried other cards, 
including the arc, and get the same result.  I tried another chassis -- 
same result (could not even upgrade that chassis's NMC).  I deinstalled 
TCM, and reinstalled.  Same results.

I'm very puzzled, and miles from the physical chassis.  Any ideas?

Oh, in case it's relevant, I'm not going direct to TCS 4.2, as I don't have 
the complete software for that... our support contract ran out, and the $$$ 
that we were quoted for renewing it were insane...  Probably will push us 
to going with a different vendor when we ultimately find ourselves totally 
stuck.   *sigh*.

Many thanks!
- Greg
: Skypoint Communications, Inc. : Greg Kemnitz - KB0OSO - [email-masked]     :
: 10700 West Highway 55 Ste 225 : +1.763.548.2600 (v) / +1.763.548.2610 (f)   :
: Plymouth, MN 55441            : Providing Internet access since Feb 28, '94 :

-

---

From: Greg Kemnitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 14:05:21 +0000

A long walk and switching to a different project for a bit is wonderful for 
giving one a new perspective on things.

TCM was filling in the file name with a filename one character off from 
what was in the sdl directory.  Once that was fixed, things worked much 
better...  :-)

Also found that I had to upgrade the HyperARC via a two-step process, as it 
wouldn't see a successful download if I skipped 4.2.73 on my way to 
5.0.9.  No idea why...  Oh well.

Suitably embarrassed, I'll now go flash up the other chassis, waiting to 
hear from someone that my choice to upgrade to hm0108.nac, ne050009.dmf, 
and hd020109.dmf is a bad thing, and I need to switch back...  :-)

Sorry to have troubled y'all...

- Greg

At 11:55 PM 04/13/2001, you wrote:
>reports "card id is not found in the device id list".  I tried other 
>cards, including the arc, and get the same result.  I tried another 
>chassis -- same result (could not even upgrade that chassis's NMC).  I 
>deinstalled TCM, and reinstalled.  Same results.
>
>Oh, in case it's relevant, I'm not going direct to TCS 4.2, as I don't 
>have the complete software for that... our support contract ran out, and 
>the $$$ that we were quoted for renewing it were insane...  Probably will 
>push us to going with a different vendor when we ultimately find ourselves 
>totally stuck.   *sigh*.
>
>Many thanks!
>- Greg

-

---

From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 19:19:06 +0000

Quads work well in some POPs, we ran quads when we figured out the DSPs
simply wouldn't work well in a new pop.

But they HAVE been EOL'd... like it or not, I can understand why 3COM
would not want to have to support a product they EOL'd two years ago.

Paul Farber
Farber Technology
[email-masked]
Ph  570-628-5303
Fax 570-628-5545

-

---

From: Jeff Mcadams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 04:05:24 +0000

Also sprach Paul Farber

>would not want to have to support a product they EOL'd two years ago.

Yeah...and EOL'ing the quads was a collosally bad mistake.  They need to
be "unEOL'ed".  They pulled this same exact crap two years ago with the
NETServer to HiPer Arc transition and EOL'ing of the NETServer, two
years before that, it was the dual modem cards.  What's it going to be
two years from now?  Either we need to get 3Com/CommWorks to realize
that installed customer base is important, or they're going to loose us
as a customer.

I know Paul, they've already lost you, and I *certainly* don't fault you
for that decision, and I'm almost there myself, but I'm trying for one
last ditch effort here.

3Com/CommWorks clearly has no clue what sort of installed base in still
out there for thier equipment.  I bet Al and Irfan barely remember the
dual modem cards (if they remember them at all)...I still have several
in production use sitting at the bottom of a rack, never being noticed
or messed with at all until we start getting busy signals on that hunt
group and we go and physically reseat them to reset them.

3Com/CommWorks clearly has no clue what their issues are with support
contracts.

OK...screw it...I'm gonna tell this, its been two years.  Two years ago,
with the NETServer being EOL'ed, and the transition to HiPer Arcs, I
raised about the same issues that I'm raising here, with about the same
response initially.  After screaming and yelling about the situation for
a couple of weeks (I think it was) I was contacted about getting
NETServers swapped for HiPer Arcs...this was the doing of the sales side
of things within 3Com at the time...this wasn't a deal that 3Com as a
whole corporate body was doing...this was a special deal that the sales
folks there made with IgLou because we made the ultimatum, "Either you
resolve this issue to our satisfaction, or you loose us as a customer."
They resolved it.  They did a 1 for 1 trade of HiPer Arcs for
NETServers, at no cost to IgLou.  The deal, however, was that I couldn't
tell anyone how this came about because it was a special deal they were
doing for me and they couldn't have everyone coming to them demanding
the same thing.

So, for those of you that remember the NETServer to HiPer Arc thing, if
any of you wondered why I suddenly went silent on that issue (or nearly
so anyway), that's why.

So...what was the result of that...I got my HiPer Arcs, and I no longer
suffered from Quake Lag or multi-chassis multi-link MPIP instabilities.
However, 3Com continued in their ways and didn't learn anything from the
situation, and here we are, 2 years later is *exactly* the same
situation, just with a different card and 3Com is making the same
*exact* mistake.  3Com/CommWorks still hasn't learned of the importance
of installed base.  3Com/CommWorks still hasn't learned of the
importance (or economics, apparently!) of reasonable availability of
support contracts.

Well...here we are again...and here's the situation again.  3Com either
resolves this situation to my satisfaction, or they loose me as a
customer, period.  Its the same ultimatum as two years ago with
NETServers.  This time, however, there will be no silencing of me with
the deal.  Whatever deal I get better be one that 3Com/CommWorks is
willing for everyone to know about, because I will not be silent on it.

-

---

From: Joshua Coombs <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 17:01:40 +0000

Here is a perl script based on a bash script written by Dave C. at PathWay
Computing that will allow you to use cricket to monitor a HiperARC TC at
either the chassis, card, or span level.  There is some cleanup work left
to be done on it, but it is usable as posted.  I'll post updates as they
are appropriate.  If anyone has any comments/etc on this code, please let
me know.

Joshua Coombs
[email-masked]
GWI Networking

<--------hiperget---------->

#!/usr/bin/perl

#
#  Script to walk through SNMP tree and add up total
#  active modems on a particular chassis, card or span.
#
#  Created 4-17-01 by Joshua Coombs and Ed Howe
#  Based on a bash script by Dave C.

#  If using E1's vs T1s, change channels to 30
$chanels = 23;
$snmpget = '/usr/local/bin/snmpget';

#  Should not need to make any changes below here.
#
$usage          =
   "./hiperget hostname comminuty-string [card-number] [span-number]\n";

$hostname       = $ARGV[0];
$community      = $ARGV[1];
$card           = $ARGV[2];
$span           = $ARGV[3];

if ( !($hostname) || !($community) )    {
   die ($usage);
   }

if ($ARGV[4] ne "")     {
        die ("Modem level reporting not implimented yet.\n");
        }

#  No card specified.  Report stats for the whole chassis,
#  then exit.
#
if ($card eq "")        {
   $inuse = `$snmpget $hostname $community .1.3.6.1.4.1.429.4.2.1.10.0 | awk \'\{\ print \$4\ \}\'`;
   print "$inuse";
   exit(0);
   }

#  No span specified.  Report stats for a card,
#  then exit.
#
if ($span eq "")        {
   $inuse = `$snmpget $hostname $community .1.3.6.1.4.1.429.4.10.35.1.3.${card} | awk \'\{\ print \$3\ \}\'`;
   print "$inuse";
   exit(0);
   }

#  Card and Span specified.  Calculate start position
#  in MIB tree.
#
$spanstart = 970 + ($card * 256) + ($span *31);
$counterend = $spanstart + $chanels;
$inuse = 0;
$temp = 0;

#  Report stats on a span.
#
while ($spanstart != $counterend)       {
   $temp = `$snmpget $hostname $community .1.3.6.1.4.1.429.4.10.1.1.18.${spanstart} | grep -v \'\=\ \"\"\' | wc -l`;
   chomp ($temp);
   $inuse = $temp + $inuse;
   $spanstart = $spanstart + 1;
   }

print "$inuse\n";

-

---

From: Joshua Coombs <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 17:34:30 +0000

Almost forgot, here is a set of Defaults and some example targets.

<------------------Defaults---------------->

target --default--
  hostname        =    ""
  short-desc      =    "Dialup lines in use"
  card            =    ""
  span            =    ""
  hipergetprog    =    "/usr/home/cricket/cricket/util/hiperget"
  hiperget        =    "%hipergetprog% %hostname% %snmp-community% %card% %span%"
  target-type     =    HiPerARC
  snmp-community  =    "public"

datasource      --default--
  rrd-ds-type             =       GAUGE
  rrd-heartbeat           =       1800
  rrd-min                 =       undef
  rrd-max                 =       undef

datasource  portsinuse  ds-source = EXEC:0:%hiperget%

targetType      HiPerARC
  ds      =       "portsinuse"
  view    =       "Ports In Use: portsinuse"

html short-desc                 "3Com HiPerARC"

graph   --default--
  precision       =       integer

graph   portsinuse
  color   =   dark-green
  draw-as =   AREA
  y-axis  =   "Ports in use"
  legend  =   "Ports In Use"

<----------------targets--------------------->

#Monitor an entire chassis.  This counts ALL logins, modem, telnet, etc
target tc1total
        hostname = "tc1"
        target-type = HiperARC
        short-desc = "All logins on TC1"

#Monitor all logins on the dsp in slot 3.
target tc1c3
        hostname = "tc1"
        target-type = HiperARC
        short-desc = "TC1 Card 3"
        card = "3"

#Monitor the second span on the dsp in slot3.
target tc1c3s2
        hostname = "tc1"
        target-type = HiperARC
        short-desc = "TC1 Card 3 Span 2"
        card = "3"
        span = "2"

-

---

From: Terry Kennedy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 20:14:28 +0000

Anyone know the OID for to get these values?

li ip networks
li co 

Or how about a decent reference for all OID's

Terry Kennedy 
OlyPen, Inc.

-

---

From: Steve Monkhouse <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 03:46:05 +0000

Does anyone have handy the ICMP MIB ?

-