Subject: (usr-tc) Message posted to interested 3Com party...

From: Mark Thornton <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 21:36:42 +0000

I posted the following message to an interested party at 3Com at their
request. It will be interesting to see what the results are, especially
since this isn't bogus and I am entertaining quotes to replace the entire
mess.

***

I have reached a decision point on the growth and maintenance of my Total
Control Hubs. Over the past six months the reports of modem connection
problems have increased significantly. I had been hoping that this wasn't
really occuring until last evening when my wife and I were discussing our
modem problems over dinner with two couples who are our best friends. They
confided that they both were having very significant connection problems,
basically indicating that it was not unusual for the connection to be
dropped within three minutes. We were not at all pleased to learn this,
particularly from them.

We use a combination of quads and hiperdsp's with a hiperarc and standard
nmc. The code level is one version back from what has just been released on
the website. We are considering upgrading to the hipernmc, but are very
reluctant to give up the quads as they support trash modems (more below)
better than the hiperdsp's.

I attribute this rise in connectivity issues to more of our customers
upgrading their computers with systems containing new, cheap modems. We can
no longer count on good USR modems being the predominate device in the
field, and the new USR winmodems are almost as bad as the no-name trash. But
that is what the customers are getting in their new systems. They are having
real problems connecting to us, but no problems connecting to our
competitors Cisco system. I also have contacts with ISP's who are dumping
3Com to move to Patton devices and Lucent devices. The reasons vary widely,
some of them based in the support issues surrounding the 3Com systems, but
for me I am paying attention to their success in getting reliable
connections.

I mentioned support issues... I assumed you knew what I am talking about.
The cost of support and availability of support in terms of addressing the
problems I and other ISP's are having is overwhelming, especially when we
are still fighting the same issues after two years. It also seems that 3Com
is shutting down methods of providing service, such as the new server, that
were very effective at providing timely reponses to queries from users.
Personally, I don't mind paying for support if I think I am getting some
benefit and value out of it. But I really want existing issues fixed before
you start modifying the system to support my competitor, the cable company,
or other 'neato' features. And as for the cost of replacement contracts, I
can now purchase a complete chassis, guaranteed to work, for less than the
cost of the support you are offering. Or, I can buy individual modules at
very affordable rates and get overnight delivery without any contract
hassles (I don't want any hassles like some ISP's have apparently had). That
just doesn't make sense. We are not currently on support, though we are
looking at the software support option again to see if that addresses the
connectivity problems. If not, it is likely that we won't be needing support
on the 3Com chassis's anyway as they will be someone else's problem.

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

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