Subject: (usr-tc) Support Contract survey

From: Jeff Mcadams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 17:17:52 +0000

OK...here are initial results of the support contract informal survey.
I only heard from 13 people (including myself :)...a mere fraction of
the number of people on the list in total.  Keep sending the
information...I'll continue to tabulate and have more updates as I hear
from more people.

The current count is 9 people don't have support contracts, and 4 do.

Some notes:

- One "yes" only had software coverage even though they would have liked
    to have greater coverage.  They had to settle for software-only
    because of the cost

- One "no" actually has coverage on a chassis, but only because that
    chassis was bought new and came with coverage...apparently you can't
    buy a chassis anymore without coverage...interesting loophole in the
    contract rules here.  This person indicated that they would rather
    have *not* gotten the coverage on the contract as they thought it
    was a waste of money.

Many of the people that emailed me as a "no" mentioned it was the cost
and/or the rules that prevented them from getting a contract.

I will re-iterate that I believe that the root of the problem stems from
3Com considering Customer Service as a "Business Unit".  In other words,
they want Customer Service to be a revenue positive part of 3Com.  While
my previous posting that discussed this was somewhat inaccurate (the
Customer Service Organization, CSO, apparently doens't get the revenues
from the support contracts, the business unit that sells the equipment -
in the case of TC, its the Network Systems Business Unit - gets the
revenues...the whole thought of trying to make Customer Service revenue
positive ends up with an attitude that ends up screwing the customer.

I just recently went through the process of trying to obtain a service
contract again...partially to try to determine if any improvements had
been made to the process...partially to find out if the "Unbundled
Service Options" on 3Com's web site would be useful here...and partially
because we really would like to have some coverage on some of our
equipment.  The current status is that the support coverage rules are
still in place (contracts purchased per-chassis rather than per-card,
and all chassis at a site have to have the same coverage...of course
last time we tried to have different coverage at different sites 3Com
didn't honor it), the support options listed as sold items (ie, not
special deals that are made for specific instances) were largely the
same as they've been for the past 3 years.  The best I got from the
discussion was that service options could be discussed (ie, a special
deal is how I understand this) if its "a sound business case that makes
sense for the customer and for 3Com."  Let me suggest that a sound
business case for 3Com would be to not lose their customers which is
what is happening...3Com is verging towards losing us as a customer
even...and we've been a USRobotics/3Com customer for at least 5 years
(35 Amp power supplied and dual analog 14.4 modems)
-- 
Jeff McAdams                            Email: [email-masked]
Head Network Administrator              Voice: (502) 966-3848
IgLou Internet Services                        (800) 436-4456

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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 17:37:33 +0000

Add my results:

NO I WILL NOT RENEW (see below) ANY SERVICE CONTRACT

and

NO I WILL NOT BE PURCHASING ANY NEW 3COM EQUIPMENT.

I just got off the phone with Ms. Michelle Catalano who said my
$1200 support contract would not be honored... even though they got the
money for it already.

I have 3 chassis at 3 locations and only *want* coverage for a specific
site with specific needs.  It's a simple chassis, 2 DSP's, 1 arc.... plain
jane setup.

Needless to say I have contacted 3 ASCEND/LUCENT vendors and will not be
purchasing ANY more 3Com equipment.  Sorry 3Com.... that's 1 new site you
won't be at (96 ports) and one site I will be converting (48 ports).  Does
the business unit understand that loosing $15K-20K over a $1200 software
upgrade (who actually calls support anymore... I think we've all learned
the 'value' of phone based support)

Since this message is being CC'ed to (hopefully) some understanding
management at 3Com, there is a person on the xmission list (krish?)
that has been worth thier weight in gold.... give that person a raise and
maybe learn a bit from how that person does support us.

I will add the 2.0.51 DSP code seems to have calmed down the chassis a
bit... to bad it took the 2.0.60 and 2.0.81 'tries' to get it.

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

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From: "Clint R. Sparks" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 17:42:57 +0000

Well my 2 cents here as well, I know that none of us likes to pay for things
we do not feel are fair or will use but it is like paying for car insurance,
you may need it someday and it will be worth it believe me. Besides I never
see anything about others charging for support but I have news just about
all do. We use Cisco equipment and it is the same deal you have to buy a
support contract or pay by the support call after the warranty period is up.
I know there are some that do not charge but I can tell you that it will not
last forever no matter what they tell you, it is an avenue for these
equipment manufacturers to make extra income and they will all succumb to it
eventually as it is easy money for them. Sometimes you just have to play the
game even if you do not like it and believe me I do not like paying for
support contracts but my number one goal is keeping my customers happy and I
will pay for the contract to do so. Besides I have much worse problems with
phone companies than equipment manufacturers, telcos are the real root of
all ISP's problems.

Thank you,

Clint R. Sparks
ComQuest Internet Services
[email-masked]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Mcadams" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 10:15 AM
Subject: (usr-tc) Support Contract survey

-

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From: "Clint R. Sparks" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 17:51:04 +0000

Paul, I am not trying to disagree with you here and I agree 3 Com needs to
wake up sometimes on how they treat customers. However Ascend/Lucent is
going to eventually charge for support contracts, it will be no different
when they do. All equipment manufacturers see this as a great source of
income and they are all in it for the money so it is only a matter of time
before all charge for it.

Thank you,

Clint R. Sparks
[email-masked]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Farber" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: (usr-tc) Support Contract survey

-

---

From: Jeff Mcadams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 17:53:01 +0000

Thus spake Clint R. Sparks
>Well my 2 cents here as well, I know that none of us likes to pay for
>things we do not feel are fair or will use but it is like paying for
>car insurance, you may need it someday and it will be worth it believe
>me. 

You've not worked with this equipment for very long, have you?  ;)

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.

>Besides I never see anything about others charging for support but I
>have news just about all do. We use Cisco equipment and it is the same
>deal you have to buy a support contract or pay by the support call
>after the warranty period is up.  

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).

>Besides I have much worse problems with phone companies than equipment
>manufacturers, telcos are the real root of all ISP's problems.

Heh...you'll get no argument from me on that one!  :)
-- 
Jeff McAdams                            Email: [email-masked]
Head Network Administrator              Voice: (502) 966-3848
IgLou Internet Services                        (800) 436-4456

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From: Mark Thornton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 17:55:34 +0000

I may not have responded to your survey so I am doing so now...

We do not have support at this time and are very unlikely to do so at the
prices charged vs. service rendered. We get our support from vendors, and
access to software updates as a result of continuing purchases for
additional hardware (primarily DSP's). If support were affordable we would
purchase it tomorrow. I like living with a safety net, but I won't pay
outrageous prices for it. I also noted someone talked about a per incident
charge, but I was rejected at 3Com tech support some months ago if I
wouldn't buy the big contract on the spot. There was no offer for per
incident support. I use per incident support form Microsoft and find it to
be very effective, though I have tried per incident support for Linux and
other applications with less success. I think that is because of how long M$
has been doing it, the others will catch up very quickly. Per incident
support is easy money anyway. When the network is down, administrators
typically have an open checkbook to get the problem resolved. That same
checkbook is notoriously difficult to crack when things are working fine.

I don't understand why I can buy a support contract the lets me talk to the
support folks for a single price. Whether I have one or twenty chassis's,
I'm typically only going to ask a question once then apply it to all
chassis. The same is with the software upgrades. The 24 hour replacement
policy on hardware I can understand being a per chassis charge.

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

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From: Marius Kirschner <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:01:26 +0000

I know what you mean.......I used to love USRobotics products and their
support, never used anything else since 1989, but since 3Com took over their
support quality decreased noticeably.  I had some minor issues when I lost
my TCM accounting and radius software and needed to re-install it.  Well, we
spent $12,000 on their hardware and they can't provide me with an "old"
version of the software (I'm not asking for the latest) without a service
contract.

We'll be adding another 48 ports shortly and you can bet it won't be a 3Com
chassis.

---Marius

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked]
> [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Paul Farber
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked];
> [email-masked]; [email-masked];
> [email-masked]; [email-masked]

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From: Jeff Mcadams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:01:38 +0000

Thus spake Mark Thornton
>I may not have responded to your survey so I am doing so now...
OK...got it, thanks!

>I don't understand why I can buy a support contract the lets me talk to
>the support folks for a single price. Whether I have one or twenty
>chassis's, I'm typically only going to ask a question once then apply
>it to all chassis. The same is with the software upgrades. The 24 hour
>replacement policy on hardware I can understand being a per chassis
>charge.

Amen!  And if you have more chassis, you're likely not going to have to
call support as often in the first place since you're likely more
knowledgeable about the equipment to begin with!

I can deal with a per-chassis charge on hardware replacement...I'd
*prefer* it to be per-card...let's face it, its easier to get serial
nubmers of cards than it is for a chassis anyway...serial number can be
retrieved via SNMP...the chassis can't.  And being on a per-card basis,
I could cover DSP's in a chassis, but not cover the quads in the same
chassis.  I think per-card is a better solution for 3Com as well as for
3Com's customers...I just totally baffles me that they haven't gone this
way.
-- 
Jeff McAdams                            Email: [email-masked]
Head Network Administrator              Voice: (502) 966-3848
IgLou Internet Services                        (800) 436-4456

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From: Mark Thornton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:04:24 +0000

Sorry for the mispellings in the previous post. I am on too many drugs for
the flu that I'm not making much sense here in the office.

At the bottom of the previous posting I meant to say that I DON'T understand
why the ability to talk to a tech is tied to the total number chassis/slots
I own and are paying support for.

Mark Thornton

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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:13:08 +0000

This is all good and well.  But look at a typical support contract from
3Com.  

If you pay for 'next day replacement'... it's only next day if the failure
happens between Monday-Thursday.  If it breaks thursday night you will not
have a part friday or sat... even though overnight delivery if available
on sat.  Friday-Sun.... next day is Tuesday.  Sounds like overnight to me.

Phone support.... nice that I can change the music on hold... and hold
times are short... but the help on the other side is spotty at best.  Plus
it seems that not all 3com support reps have a modem to dial out on.. had
to wait 20 minutes for a guy to configure his machine and get an open
line... this is from a modem manufacturer!!!  Put a modem in each
workstation for gods sake.

Last but not least... having to cover the entire enterprise for support.
Hmmm.... I have 250+ ports, arcs and nmc cards... I have spares, I just
want the software updates.... god knows the code is a work in progress.
Why can CISCO charge $13 for IP software to run a router and not force me
to cover every router?  I should be able to pick and choose what I want
when I want it.  I'm sure there is a way to put the 2.0.81 software in a
shopping cart for easy purchase.

As for 'all free all the time'.. no, I don't believe in that either.  I do
believe that it's my money, and I will spend it on what I think is the
BEST VALUE.  Paying $3K a year for support which is not next day, spotty
phone support and covering equipment that I don't want to cover is not a
value at all.

Word to the wise.... lurk on the ascent/lucent/cisco lists.... see what
thier problems are..... you'll be suprised.    

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

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From: "Clint R. Sparks" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:18:08 +0000

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.

> disposable at this point.

I agree we to do not need 3 Coms help except when hardware fails and we need
replacements.

> 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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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:22:41 +0000

Will pay if it's reasonable.  I don't see it as insurance, I see it as
casting a vote of confidence in the company that they will improve the
product and fill the need I have for their equipment.

Look at the resolved issues on most sw releases... unless it says
"improved v.90 performance" or "improved compatibly with lucent/rockwell
chipsets" it is not generally worth the upgrade.  I NEED those things, I
will PAY for those things..... the support contract software is NOT doing
it.

Maybe the TC line is to broad.... maybe a multiservice platform is nice
for large corporations but for small ISP's (the majority) I really don't
need VOIP, or a nic that does frame (who has ever used the wan ports on a
TC ARC NIC???) or dial out, or caller ID based access, or VPN.

I need a RAS that takes calls (reliably) and routes them to my router.
After about $60K of 3com equipment it's becoming clear that they are not
the filling my need.

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

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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:34:11 +0000

An EXELLENT business idea just hit me.  If a vendor had 'Card Replacement
Plan'.  IE, for X a month ($20-50) if your ARC/NMC/DSP goes south you call
them and they overnight you (i mean really overnight. next day incl sat.)
a replacement card while your's is under warranty repair.  When you get
your's back you return the NIC/NAC and you are in business.

Face it.. most of us just want the hardware replacement and all new gear
comes with 5 year warranty... unless you pay for support you have
to wait 2-4 weeks for the repair.

We would win as we get the next day card from a vendor (who would keep the
code up to date) and the vendor would win cause $50 a month from 50 ISP's
is $2500 a month.. more than ehough to keep cards in stock and mail them
out.

You pay $240-$600/year for your entire site coverage (for any/all cards)
and you get what you want.. minimal downtime.

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

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From: Brian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:39:34 +0000

Yes the whole support contract issue is really a shame.  Countless times I
have *tried* to get support contracts, but 3com will not take my money,
they don't want it.  It comes down to the wire, and then at that last
minute they change the rules.

We have used 3Com Total Control for many years.  All we need the contracts
for is the software support.  We buy a chassis at least every 2 months
anyways, so we are always covered under the 90 day support blanket that
comes with each chassis..........we could keep this up forever, and 3com
won't make a dime.  Or they can come out with a decent offer.

I have support contracts on everything except the 3com stuff we own.
Cisco, Foundry, Ascend......they didn't have problems with support
contracts, only 3com.

And those of us without contracts, alot of us have been using this stuff
for 4 or 5 or more years.  We are not the ones calling the support teams
and using up 3 hours on a tech call for simple answers.  We just want
coverage.

Brian

> (35 Amp power supplied and dual analog 14.4 modems)

-----------------------------------------------------
Brian Feeny (BF304)     [email-masked]   
318-222-2638 x 109	http://www.shreve.net/~signal      
Network Administrator   ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881) 	      

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From: Brian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:42:11 +0000

> $1200 support contract would not be honored... even though they got the

I can't beleive how they treat us.  You know that happened to us, we paid
several thousand dollars for some support on a bunch of chassis we placed
an order for, and 3com would not honor it.  It was a total mess.  It made
buying 3com equipment a nightmare.  Our vendor ended up issuing us a
credit............

> site with specific needs.  It's a simple chassis, 2 DSP's, 1 arc.... plain

well, even forcing to have support on everything.  I mean, it should be
support everything in use.  What about all the stuf I have on the shelf,
not in production, why should I buy a support contract on that?

They need to do their support per card, not this per chassis stuff.

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From: Brian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:44:17 +0000

speaking of serial numbers, is their a place on 3com's site you can go and
view what serial numbers they have on file for you?  so that we can at
least see where they are coming from?

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From: Brian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 18:46:15 +0000

I hear the support on the phone has improved.  Man do I have some stories.
Like some girl who just hung up on me because she was frustrated, or the
times I called support at midnight, only for 3com to wake some poor guy up
at his house, who calls me back half asleep trying to setup his laptop so
he can help me.............man was it a nightmare, I use to dread that
stuff.  I use to wait 45min - 1.24 hours average, it was a mess

-

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From: Brian Elfert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 19:57:25 +0000

> before all charge for it.

I just got a Cisco AS53192 to replace most of my 3Com gear.  (I always
maintain two types of NAS equipment for compatability reasons.)

The pricing on the 8x5xNBD contract is $2730 per year.  I think the 3Com
price on a similiar contract is the same or more for 192 ports.  Cisco
will normally provide 24x7 support at no additional cost for network down
emergencies even with the 8x5 contract.  I'm pretty sure 3Com would charge
the normal hourly or per incident charge for after hours calls.

The 24x7x4 contract that includes 4 hour replacement is $4370 a year.
Might seem a bit steep, but I don't think 3Com even offers 4 hour
replacement.  I can't afford to have 192 of my lines out of service
oevernight or through a weekend.  One long outage would probably wipe out
any savings gained by not paying for the support.

Brian

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From: Brian Elfert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 19:59:05 +0000

> to cover every router?  I should be able to pick and choose what I want

Cisco bundles the cost of the IP only IOS into the price of the router.

The only reason they don't just include the IP only license in the box is
because a lot of people need the other IOS licenses with more features, so
they offer a full range of licenses to buy seperately.

The $13 just covers the cost of the packaging and manufacturing for the
license they send you. 

Brian

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From: Jeff Mcadams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 20:02:01 +0000

Thus spake Brian Elfert
>replacement.  

Yes, they do.

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From: "Lon R. Stockton, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 20:53:59 +0000

> (35 Amp power supplied and dual analog 14.4 modems)

Man, wasn't USR sweet stuff back when that was state-of-the-art.

*sigh*

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From: "Lon R. Stockton, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 21:01:36 +0000

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Clint R. Sparks wrote:

> you may need it someday and it will be worth it believe me.

To make the comparision more accurate, we need to note that the car
insurance is 1/5 of the total sale price of the car, per annum. That
nice stripped-down Mercedes winds up costing $10k per year.

No, I don't think it's fair, or reasonable. Or worth it.

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From: Richard Stuplich <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 21:36:40 +0000

I will not pay 3com to guarantee that the product I buy works as they sold
it.

What I do is go nuts, complain like a mad man, demand support, bitch      
and moan till I get a totalservice password, download everything, store  
it on my hard drive, contact my vendor, demand they support, go nuts on   
them.

It is 3com AND the vendor's fault that my stuff doesn't work as 
advertised and sold. They both allow products that are not ready (fully
cooked) to make it to the street.

-

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From: "Clint R. Sparks" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 21:36:48 +0000

> No, I don't think it's fair, or reasonable. Or worth it.

Okay I agree but my equipment is allowing thousands of customers to log-in
everyday and this is how I make my living so it is worth it to me. The ISP
business is very competitive now a days and I cannot afford to have a piece
of equipment go down and not get replacement parts for it quickly so I guess
you have to weigh that against not having the support contract. I care about
nothing more than keeping my customers happy, and everyone in this business
knows full well that dialup customers are not going to care that you could
not get good support from 3 Com because you did not want to pay for their
ridiculous contract prices, they are going to want to know why you did not
pay and when the lines will be back up. We can all be mad all we want about
3 Com's support contract prices but our customers are not going to be mad at
3 Com but at us for being down or having problems. If a person cannot get
good support from 3 Com then I agree that they should switch to another
equipment manufacturer like Ascend.

Clint

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From: "Lon R. Stockton, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 21:50:51 +0000

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Clint R. Sparks wrote:

> you have to weigh that against not having the support contract.

If you're worried about mission-critical equipment going down and not
getting replacements quickly, you don't rely on service contracts anyway.
You have spares in the closet. As you say, the ISP business is very
competitive...and even "next day" replacement (when it actually IS
next-day) is too long to wait if you're market share includes a large
percentage of non-casual users.

Too bad that 3com insists on forcing you to include your "sitting in
a closet, unplugged" equipment in your service contract...effectively
doubling the cost of it, and making it even less cost-effective.

If only there was an alt.binaries.warez.3com.tc 'group.  (:

-

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From: Terry Kennedy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 22:43:57 +0000

Here's my take -- NO I will not renew the one contract I have for reasons
already mentioned multiple times: having to buy contracts for everything,
paying for working code when I aready paid for it, I dont need the support
thanks to you guys and it's much cheaper to keep spare equipment than to pay
for a promise of next day delivery. It only cost's 10000 for a complete
spare  unit.

What I will do is continue to buy equipment and every 90 days or so I can
have access to the total control site. I will continue to beat up my
suppliers and make them BREAK THE RULES! rather have myself break them.
Little gray area there for ya!

As far as going with Ascend, as if that was even a choice at stage, I don't
know ascend and couldn't comment on thier quality or not. Grass is always
greener??

I see no point in getting all pissed off at 3com, Let them do what they do
and the market will take care of the rest. If they really do such a lousy
job then they will fade like so many before them.

On another point, I had a 3com "engineer" comeon-site to help. He wasn't
much more than an installation tech. He got sent home. What we do is find
the brightest 3 guys on this list and hire them to come on-site. just my 1
Cent.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked]
[mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Jeff Mcadams
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 7:16 AM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked];
[email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: (usr-tc) Support Contract survey

Some notes:

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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 23:08:34 +0000

exellent point.... I can purchase what I want when I want on what I want
to cover.  If I need ip plus I can buy it.. not needing to cover the
entire network.

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

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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 23:08:35 +0000

Cisco get top dollar for name recognition... then they are pretty damned
smart... I called up once for a problem with a 3640 I had.... the guy was
all over it.  Impressive.  To bad for cisco thier gear dosen't fail much
(in my case).  IOS is a bear to learn... but that's what newsgroups and
lists are for!

I would happily pay for a service... if I got what I paid for.

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

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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 23:17:10 +0000

I don't expect things to be free.  I expect to get what I pay for.  I
don't bitch and make people miserable... I take my money elsewhere.  That
hurts more.

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

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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 23:25:19 +0000

hmm... lets see... in the last few months 3Com has released 3 new dsp code
rev's.  That means that stuff is leaving before tested and that your
customers are getting poor service.  My Jan stats showed a 27% drop rate
in the first 3 minutes.  The 2.0.51 fix seems to work now.. down to about
20% drop in the first 3 minutes.  

OSPF is a work in progress and the ARC code is being cluttered with
services that ISP's don't really need.. VOIP, dial out.  If you ever look
in the full SNMP dump you'll see the programmers names.... yeah.... that
will make the ARC run better.. any more useless crap in the code???

As for support..... if you are paying for 'next day replacement' you are
being dooped... if your ARC breaks on Thursday at 9pm, you ain't getting a
replacement till monday... tuesday more like it.

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

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From: Terry Kennedy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 23:46:38 +0000

Paul, do you believe this dropped call problem is DSP problem? We seen and
heard from customers these complaints for sometime. We have never been able
to pin this on anything. I would hate to think that the modems are simply
dropping calls. I always blamed this on the telco. Does anyone else see this
as a bad problem. It thought we were the only ones. Is this an industy
standard for dialup? Do the Ascend units drop calls like this?

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From: Kevin Benton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2000 23:50:52 +0000

<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

>  "help" to the same address.  Do not use quotes in your message.

E-Mail:  [email-masked]
Web:     http://users.sota-oh.com/~s1kevin/
Unsolicited advertisements processing fee: $50 subject to change without notice

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From: Lists <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 00:11:35 +0000

> The current count is 9 people don't have support contracts, and 4 do.

Hmmm, must have missed all this...

We're a big NO.  We had a contract, which 3COM were unable to honour as
per the terms when we needed it.  They gave us a full credit for the
contract, and then 12 months later sent us to the collectors for not
paying it (and then tried to collect in US funds, not AUD).

>     to have greater coverage.  They had to settle for software-only

I can go along with that.  It's cheaper for me to keep a spare chassis on
hand myself than it is to pay 3COM for a contract.  As for software -
we're Quad/NETserver based.  There doesn't seem to be any interest at 3COM
towards fixing the interoperability problems reported here, nor will there
be any new NETserver code, so why would I want even software support?

> The best I got from the discussion was that service options could be
> discussed (ie, a special deal is how I understand this) if its "a
> sound business case that makes sense for the customer and for 3Com."  

ie, if you're as big as AOL, we'll cut you a deal :-)

> Let me suggest that a sound business case for 3Com would be to not
> lose their customers which is what is happening...3Com is verging
> towards losing us as a customer even...and we've been a
> USRobotics/3Com customer for at least 5 years (35 Amp power supplied
> and dual analog 14.4 modems)

We're seriously considering our options as well - it's not very likely
that we'll be upgrading to HiPer gear.  Probably move to Cisco instead,
which is what our interstate office use.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Purdon,                          Ground Floor, Marine Board Building
Technical Manager (Tas/Vic),                  1 Franklin Wharf, Tas 7000
Southern Internet Services.                            +61 (3) 6234 7444

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From: Brice Ligget <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 00:31:03 +0000

>standard for dialup? Do the Ascend units drop calls like this?

I see dropped calls from time to time.  If the client has the latest modem 
code installed on their end I have the customer insert a -v90=0, the 
problems go away.  Doesn't sound like a telco problem to me.  Sounds like a 
v.90 connect problem.

--
Brice Ligget
Chief Operations Officer
Two Alpha Net is a complete Internet Service Provider based in Billings 
Montana.
"Connect to the world"
406 628 1500

http://www.twoalpha.net

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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 00:55:26 +0000

I'm going by the radius stats kept by cistron radius.  I simple script
tells me how many calls were recieved of a certian duration and what
percent of total for the day.... yesterday was:

00:00 221 6.3
00:01 224 6.4
00:02 481 13.8
00:03 116 3.3
.
.
.
06:00 53 1.5
06:01 5 0.1
08:57 1 0.0
Total calls: 3488

Of the 1042 call less than 4 minutes, 487 I should have been there (an
ISDN cusotmer checks mail every 5 minutes, that's 555 unnder 4 minutes..
of a 15% drop rate in the first 4 minutes of a call. 

The recorded diconnect reason in radius is 'User-Request' or
'Carrier-Loss'. both to generic to be of any value.  Someone said you can
trap the diconnect reason.... but to date I have not got it to work.  I
can trap auth errors... but not disconnect reasons.  But i'm working on
it.

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

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From: Mike Andrews <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 21:15:04 +0000

OK, I'll jump in here too.

We don't have support contracts.  Never have.

I would like to get software support, maybe, if it was reasonably
priced...  so far, we've been buying hardware at least every 90 days
anyway so it hasn't yet been an issue.

The cost of used cards has dropped to the point where it doesn't make
sense to get hardware maintenance -- it'd be cheaper just to stockpile
spares, then get the dead things repaired if they're under the 2 year
hardware warranty.

>From what people have been saying, even if I bought a contract, it
probably wouldn't be honored anyway. :)

On the other hand, we've never tried calling 3Com, execpt when we had
hardware die under warranty.  The first was our very first Dual PRI
(August 1997) that was DOA; they overnighted a new one.  We had an NMC die
later, which they spent a month repairing, but that's OK.  I have a DSP
that needs fixing now; we'll see how that goes...

We've never called them for software support -- this mailing list mostly
eliminates the need for that.  For configuration stuff, I've usually been
able to search around and figure it out myself.  We've just about
rewritten all of TCM (and soon HARM) in Perl anyway. :)

We're sticking with it because from what I understand, despite all the
problems people have with v.90, everyone else's stuff is worse.  EVERY
VENDOR has v.90 problems of SOME sort.  Ascend has problems too, Cisco
does, Livingston did...  you'd just trade one set of problems for another.
I also hate Ascend's management interface, and their, uh, "unique" ideas
about how SNMP should work.  Our competitors here use Ascend and Cisco
(except AOL which is 3Com) and I'm *not* seeing a lot of people say they
get more reliable connects there.  There's only so much that can be done
on the server to compensate for a broken client (Rockwell HCF)...

Mike Andrews (MA12) * [email-masked] * http://www.bit0.com/
VP, sysadmin, & network guy, Digital Crescent Inc, Frankfort KY
Internet services for Frankfort, Lawrenceburg, Owenton, Shelbyville
"Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things."

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From: "Lon R. Stockton, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 22:05:19 +0000

On Thu, 3 Feb 2000, Mike Andrews wrote:

> We've just about

And you'll soon be releasing same to us all under the GPL or BSD
license?  *grin*  *hopeful, puppyface look*  *drool*

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From: Paul Farber <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 00:57:00 +0000

I really don't want to learn a new platform.... I would like to stay all
TC.. they do work well once the code is settled down.

I like the units, their BASIC design and pricing.  But when 3Com puts
thier fingers all over the support end... it seems that they want to make
life difficult 'just cause they can'.

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

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From: Mike Andrews <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 01:41:00 +0000

> license?  *grin*  *hopeful, puppyface look*  *drool*

http://www.dcr.net/~mandrews/usrtoys has what's done so far.  Jeff Mcadams
and I are working on an all-in-one tool but neither of us has had time to
sit down and work on it lately... :p

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 23:19:12 +0000

We have a support contract for both hard- and software on all our
chassis; but that's because we're Cornell and we love to waste
money. 8-)

Seriously, though, the support contract has pulled my ham out of
the fire more than once. What we have is a basic contract: I have
broken card, I call 3Com, they pass me on to Logistics, they send
me new card, I send them bad card. All this takes about a day. I
rarely call for configuration/software questions because this list
seems to cover the gambit and beyond. Otherwise, I usually am able
to figure it out myself. I also rarely have half the problems you
all seem to have; probably because I'm not doing half the wacked-out
stuff you all are. 8-)
*********************************************************
Michelle M. Mogil
Network and Computing Systems
721 Rhodes Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
vox: (607) 255-0516, fax: (607) 255-8420
email: [email-masked]
**********************************************

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From: Brian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 00:35:08 +0000

> all seem to have; probably because I'm not doing half the wacked-out

The thing is, the hiper stuff is so new, its all still under manufacturers
warranty anyways, its just not next day service.  So if you buy a DSP and
it dies, you can get a replacement whether you have a support contract or
not............just not as quick, maybe like 10+ day turn around.

Brian

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 14:45:03 +0000

>not............just not as quick, maybe like 10+ day turn around.

Which is why I insist on the business office buying me an extra one or
two of each type of card that I keep in a set-up chassis, all loaded
with latest code and parameters, for hot spares.

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