Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting
At 09:15 PM 10/15/99 -0400, Lon R. Stockton, Jr. wrote:
On Fri, 15 Oct 1999, Allen Marsalis wrote:
I have no regrets.. x2 was a big deal in our area (we certainly helped) and being the first 56k provider in our area was a big win for us. USR made that happen.. I liked USR.. It's 3com that I feel ill about.
Agreed here too. Getting my TC rack was a big win for us, and having it still is. We were first with x2, first with v.90, and our v.90 *still* walks all over my competitions' PM-based dialup pools. And we're still the only provider in town doing ISDN, which is the best thing you can get here aside from a dedicated line. (and we're served by Sprint, who has some really good ISDN BRI pricing...only about $5 more than two regular phone lines and flat-rate to boot...not to mention that inbound PRIs are about 1/2 the cost of CT1's).
Same here. That's pretty much exactly how we feel about it. However we occationally find a user with a good sportster/3com modem who can't get v.90 on our TCS but can on our TNT (eval) and more importantly, can with our competitors. Users won't stay with 28.8 when they can get 48k elsewhere.. If there were no modem code issues, I'd be more than happy to send the eval back. Instead, I'll probably get an invoice...
Do we use 3com switches or routers? no we use cisco, foundry, etc..
I'm actually a fan of their switches. But one doesn't have the same problems...either a ethernet switch works or it doesn't. If it's
Well back when we started, we bought a superstack and it worked of course but when I found out it was half-duplex on all 10T ports, we sent it back and opted for a catalyst.. But nowadays I'm sure things are different. We outgrew the catalyst and now have a fastiron and we love it.. I realize that switches don't call for much support, but we did have some issues with the catalyst. Ciscos support as amazing and they even called back again just to make sure we were happy. 3com on the otherhand wanted to charge us for support on a 1 day old switch! I just wanted to double check to see that their was no fdx on the ports before sending it back. They could have cared less whether I returned it or not.. So I did! Allen - 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.
Again yes there is a problem with V90 on 3com. Ascend units will do V90 with a client 3com modem in cases where 3com TC won't... this is DEFINITELY a problem that has been addressed but not resolved. You would think this would concern 3com more than it does... just like all the complaints about support on this list. Oh well when everyone is switching to a different platform they may care but it will be too late. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Allen Marsalis <am@shreve.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 6:11 PM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Same here. That's pretty much exactly how we feel about it. However we occationally find a user with a good sportster/3com modem who can't get v.90 on our TCS but can on our TNT (eval) and more importantly, can with our competitors. Users won't stay with 28.8 when they can get 48k elsewhere.. If there were no modem code issues, I'd be more than happy to send the eval back. Instead, I'll probably get an invoice... Well back when we started, we bought a superstack and it worked of course but when I found out it was half-duplex on all 10T ports, we sent it back and opted for a catalyst.. But nowadays I'm sure things are different. We outgrew the catalyst and now have a fastiron and we love it.. I realize that switches don't call for much support, but we did have some issues with the catalyst. Ciscos support as amazing and they even called back again just to make sure we were happy. 3com on the otherhand wanted to charge us for support on a 1 day old switch! I just wanted to double check to see that their was no fdx on the ports before sending it back. They could have cared less whether I returned it or not.. So I did! Allen - 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. - 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.
At 07:45 PM 10/16/99 -0400, Ed wrote:
Again yes there is a problem with V90 on 3com. Ascend units will do V90 with a client 3com modem in cases where 3com TC won't... this is DEFINITELY a problem that has been addressed but not resolved. You would think this would concern 3com more than it does... just like all the complaints about support on this list.
Agreed. I am certainly willing to replicate the problem for 3com and arrange a meeting between a 3com engineer, a specific customer, and ourselves.. They can watch the customer dial in a 3com chassis and the TNT and pull all the stats they wish from both chassis as well as the customers modem.. The data should be there to analzye if they cared to do so. I'll even swap spans and show them how the problem follows the chassis and not the PRI's.. Unless they know what the problem already is and *can't* do anything about it (like netserver UDP lag).
Oh well when everyone is switching to a different platform they may care but it will be too late.
But that's not going to happen because of our investment in 3com gear. Although I've done it once, most ISP's can't sell 100% of their modems and just switch to a different platform. We might merge in another platform into our network to keep the problem users from quitting but weve also noticed their are cases where the 3com performs better.. (i.e. the reverse is true). I guess you can't win em all.. Allen
Ed
----- Original Message ----- From: Allen Marsalis <am@shreve.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 6:11 PM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting
Same here. That's pretty much exactly how we feel about it. However we occationally find a user with a good sportster/3com modem who can't get v.90 on our TCS but can on our TNT (eval) and more importantly, can with our competitors. Users won't stay with 28.8 when they can get 48k elsewhere.. If there were no modem code issues, I'd be more than happy to send the eval back. Instead, I'll probably get an invoice...
Well back when we started, we bought a superstack and it worked of course but when I found out it was half-duplex on all 10T ports, we sent it back and opted for a catalyst.. But nowadays I'm sure things are different. We outgrew the catalyst and now have a fastiron and we love it..
I realize that switches don't call for much support, but we did have some issues with the catalyst. Ciscos support as amazing and they even called back again just to make sure we were happy. 3com on the otherhand wanted to charge us for support on a 1 day old switch! I just wanted to double check to see that their was no fdx on the ports before sending it back. They could have cared less whether I returned it or not.. So I did!
Allen
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The anomaly is that the clients are 3Com modems in all our cases. I've lost a couple dozen customers that I am aware of and 3Com remains silent on the issue. If they are investigating it, I would like to know about it. Perhaps they can fix it, perhaps they can't but it sure would be nice to know SOME status.
Agreed. I am certainly willing to replicate the problem for 3com and arrange a meeting between a 3com engineer, a specific customer, and ourselves.. They can watch the customer dial in a 3com chassis and the TNT and pull all the stats they wish from both chassis as well as the customers modem.. The data should be there to analzye if they cared to do so. I'll even swap spans and show them how the problem follows the chassis and not the PRI's..
Thanks, Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM - 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.
Greg Coffey wrote: "The anomaly is that the clients are 3Com modems in all our cases. I've lost a couple dozen customers that I am aware of and 3Com remains silent on the issue. If they are investigating it, I would like to know about it. Perhaps they can fix it, perhaps they can't but it sure would be nice to know SOME status." Problem is 3com knows about it... and they know what is causing it. However they have thus far refused to resolve it. Anyone having these problems needs to contact George Ebert immediately at George_Ebert@mw.3com.com Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts. Ed - 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.
Thus spake Ed
Problem is 3com knows about it... and they know what is causing it. However they have thus far refused to resolve it.
Can you share with us what's causing it (assuming you know of course)? I'm only just now beginning to really dig into real modem functionality...I'd be interested in hearing the explanation. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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.
Jeff McAdams wrote: "Can you share with us what's causing it (assuming you know of course)? I'm only just now beginning to really dig into real modem functionality...I'd be interested in hearing the explanation." Why certainly...will tell you what we know thus far. Depending on the signal level differences (i.e. if the dB down at a certain frequency was at a certain value it would train based on that criteria). Our understanding is that they just tuned the algorithms to attempt V90 connections under conditions that they didn't necessarily feel were the best conditions for V90, for the sake of allowing a V90 connection. They would measure the signal rolloff at certain frequency levels and if the rollover was more than a certain value it would not attempt to negotiate V90. If you were to use a 3com Sportster and dial up to the Ascend unit plugged into the same PRI, it would show a hotter signal at crucial frequencies -- I believe 3com may also have experimented with modifying the signal levels on the DSP modems themselves as well. However still no solution... and the Ascend DOES negotiates V90 in more situations. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Mcadams <jeffm@iglou.com> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 1:02 PM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems Thus spake Ed
Problem is 3com knows about it... and they know what is causing it. However they have thus far refused to resolve it.
Can you share with us what's causing it (assuming you know of course)? I'm only just now beginning to really dig into real modem functionality...I'd be interested in hearing the explanation. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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. - 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.
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem? -- Aaron Nabil - 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.
The problem is that the connection is just as stable on Ascend v90 as 3com v34. So YES it is a PROBLEM. We have tested extensively with both Ascend and 3com TC... again it IS a known problem and 3com acknowledged it. (People have to get out of the mindset that 3com is ultimately superior... they do have flaws) We believe it to until recently... Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Aaron Nabil <nabil@spiritone.com> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 2:15 PM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem? -- Aaron Nabil - 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. - 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.
So this scenerio, where modem X connects to Ascend, and only v.34 to 3com, the modem does not retrain down to lower levels, it doesn't exhibate any indications of a "problematic" v90 connection? On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Ed wrote:
The problem is that the connection is just as stable on Ascend v90 as 3com v34. So YES it is a PROBLEM.
We have tested extensively with both Ascend and 3com TC... again it IS a known problem and 3com acknowledged it.
(People have to get out of the mindset that 3com is ultimately superior... they do have flaws) We believe it to until recently...
Ed
----- Original Message ----- From: Aaron Nabil <nabil@spiritone.com> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 2:15 PM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
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----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881) - 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.
I've never had a customer call the v90 connection "unreliable" to the competition's Ascends. The feedback that I've got from customers is that they get better throughput and are not dissatified with the connects to the Ascends. They are using USR modems to dial and they connect consistently with Ascends at v90 rates, usually 40something. They never connect at v90 to our TC racks from the same location, using the same PC, software, phone lines, config, etc. I don't know the exact cause, they seem to be on the fringe of the v90 availability area. 3Com described it to me as a "bug" in the Ascend server firmware. All I know is that it has cost me customers in the past and continues to be an issue that I have no answer for when it comes up. I have gone to great lengths to explain to them what I have learned many months ago from 3Com but I don't think they believe me. Would you believe that 3Com/USR modems connect better to the competition than their own racks? Thankfully, it is a somewhat rare occurance and I only have to explain once or twice a month. I really don't know for sure to what extent it really occurs. I do know that I have lost customers over this and it continues to be an issue. I am getting tired of no news to update the situation though. I'm also afraid that it will harm our reputation if this continues as is. Word of mouth is still our best marketing and this will grow in significance with time. At 11:15 AM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
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Thanks, Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM - 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.
Greg Coffey writes...
I've never had a customer call the v90 connection "unreliable" to the competition's Ascends.
Why would a "customer" being describing to you the nature of connection to your competition's equipment? I have _own_ both Max's and Hiperdsps.
. . .
Would you believe that 3Com/USR modems connect better to the competition than their own racks? Thankfully, it is a somewhat rare occurance and I only have to explain once or twice a month.
So the occurance of people getting solid v.34 connections on a 3com instead of unstable v.90 connections on Ascend is a "rare occurance", but you are expecting some flood of reports, from your customers, about calling into your _competitors_ equipment, to judge if the Ascend connections are stable or not? If you are going to pursue this rather dubious argument, why not just say what you really want? You want 3com chassis to _connect_ at some outrageously high rate, say, 53k, and then silently fall back to a slower speed since it's unlikely the customer will notice the fallback. Hey 3com, how about that? Make all v.90 connections, regardless of quality, always "CONNECT 53000" and then fall back to 40k or V.34 later? Please make sure it's an option that can be disabled, I'd don't need any more "mysterious disconnects" or "neglible throughput" trouble calls than I already get.
At 11:15 AM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil - 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.
If it comes down to significantly degrading other connections to our system in order to enhance some on the fringe to get them v90, no, I don't want that. I would like to hear it from someone at 3Com that this is the current thinking on the matter.
If you are going to pursue this rather dubious argument, why not just say what you really want? You want 3com chassis to _connect_ at some outrageously high rate, say, 53k, and then silently fall back to a slower speed since it's unlikely the customer will notice the fallback.
Hey 3com, how about that? Make all v.90 connections, regardless of quality, always "CONNECT 53000" and then fall back to 40k or V.34 later? Please make sure it's an option that can be disabled, I'd don't need any more "mysterious disconnects" or "neglible throughput" trouble calls than I already get.
Thanks, Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM - 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.
I think (and perhaps someone can refresh my memory) that 3com actually responded to this ascend phenomenon, and said that its actually more or less a bug in the ascend code, and not a problem in the 3com code, in that the ascend picks piss poor connections to negotiate v90 with. But I would be interested in knowing the stability of the connection, the number of retrains, and the ongoing average xmit/rcv rates of such a connection, raw thruput tests would be cool too. I don't know if anyone has done this. I would imagine, actually hope, that 3com's tests labs, have done many tests against their own stuff and against competitors. I would think they would not make a policy of releasing such data, unless of course 3com was best in every case, which I doubt it was, but certainly coudln't have done too poor. Brian On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Greg Coffey wrote:
If it comes down to significantly degrading other connections to our system in order to enhance some on the fringe to get them v90, no, I don't want that. I would like to hear it from someone at 3Com that this is the current thinking on the matter.
If you are going to pursue this rather dubious argument, why not just say what you really want? You want 3com chassis to _connect_ at some outrageously high rate, say, 53k, and then silently fall back to a slower speed since it's unlikely the customer will notice the fallback.
Hey 3com, how about that? Make all v.90 connections, regardless of quality, always "CONNECT 53000" and then fall back to 40k or V.34 later? Please make sure it's an option that can be disabled, I'd don't need any more "mysterious disconnects" or "neglible throughput" trouble calls than I already get.
Thanks,
Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM
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----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881) - 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.
I hate to say this but perception is reality. Telling a customer that the competition's equipment is lying to them doesn't sound all that sincere, even if it is. The customer, a 60 year old grandfather of 6, isn't interested in you rhetoric (as they see it). They are mad that your connections are 33.6 when the competition is 40+. We do loose customers over this and that sucks because not only do we have better (more reliable connects and no busy signals, ever) we have more bandwidth and a faster overall network than the competition. However as the connect rate is lower we suck, as they see it. Please read the above to mean that if the competition uses what I would call 'an aggressive V90 connect' then that is what I need. Hell I have tossed around the joke of fixing the windows dialer to report 2 rates higher than the actual rate. Boy would my customers be happy! They would all believe it was FAST and 'perception is reality' On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Brian wrote:
I think (and perhaps someone can refresh my memory) that 3com actually responded to this ascend phenomenon, and said that its actually more or less a bug in the ascend code, and not a problem in the 3com code, in that the ascend picks piss poor connections to negotiate v90 with. But I would be interested in knowing the stability of the connection, the number of retrains, and the ongoing average xmit/rcv rates of such a connection, raw thruput tests would be cool too. I don't know if anyone has done this.
I would imagine, actually hope, that 3com's tests labs, have done many tests against their own stuff and against competitors. I would think they would not make a policy of releasing such data, unless of course 3com was best in every case, which I doubt it was, but certainly coudln't have done too poor.
Brian
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Greg Coffey wrote:
If it comes down to significantly degrading other connections to our system in order to enhance some on the fringe to get them v90, no, I don't want that. I would like to hear it from someone at 3Com that this is the current thinking on the matter.
If you are going to pursue this rather dubious argument, why not just say what you really want? You want 3com chassis to _connect_ at some outrageously high rate, say, 53k, and then silently fall back to a slower speed since it's unlikely the customer will notice the fallback.
Hey 3com, how about that? Make all v.90 connections, regardless of quality, always "CONNECT 53000" and then fall back to 40k or V.34 later? Please make sure it's an option that can be disabled, I'd don't need any more "mysterious disconnects" or "neglible throughput" trouble calls than I already get.
Thanks,
Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM
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----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881)
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Richard B. Stuplich Nobody will be free until CTO, DataWave Technologies nerd persecution ends. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DataWave, Wausau's first local ISP to have a direct connection to the Midwest NAP, 2 full T1s, high-speed terminal servers, wireless connections, Frame Relay, ISDN, x2, k56Flex, v.90/PCM and all digital modem connections. Experience the integrity, innovation and dedication of DataWave 715-843-7823 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - 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.
Aaron- Since you own both, and seem to be in the upper percentile of technically savy telecom people on this list, have YOU personally been able to gather any significant data showing that the Ascend offers a greater percentage of your customers a "better" connection than on the Hiper? (By better, it may even mean a "subjective" quality of the connection, where the connect speed to both NAS's is the same, but the connection throughput is better, or just "seems and feels" faster to the end user) -Scot -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Nabil Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 3:59 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems I have _own_ both Max's and Hiperdsps.
. . .
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Scot Desort writes...
Aaron-
Since you own both, and seem to be in the upper percentile of technically savy telecom people on this list, have YOU personally been able to gather any significant data showing that the Ascend offers a greater percentage of your customers a "better" connection than on the Hiper?
Unfortunatly in our network we have a number of problems that prevent us from comparing the two with any statistical rigor. First is the lack of (or I don't know how to get at them) the same connection quality indicators on the Maxes that we have on the USR's (block error rate, retrains, etc). Second is that our Maxes are on phone numbers that we have allowed our customers to self-select in using. Most are probably Macs, people with rockwell modems, and we've our CLEC has has some inter-office trunking issues that cause people to use the Maxes (they are still on the ILEC). We do have some maxes on our CLEC, it might be fun sometime to set up a peecee to continuously make test calls to the USR's and Maxes, record the results (by dumping the modem registers) and compare the two. I wonder if anyone has a program to do this?
(By better, it may even mean a "subjective" quality of the connection, where the connect speed to both NAS's is the same, but the connection throughput is better, or just "seems and feels" faster to the end user)
The few tests we've made have the 3com's handily beating the Ascends in throughput (FTP of a random-data file) for the same current connection rate. But for some reason the 3com's have some problems in MPP performance that makes the Ascends faster, the last time we tested (at least 6 months ago). -- Aaron Nabil - 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.
So, if I understand you correctly: Your experience says Ascend is just a better web browsing customer Access Server. And, you can't really get a good data spread due to the local line issues being a tad different. I wonder, why would the PPP be slower on the 3COM? Any ideas 3COM guys? Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Nabil Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 6:23 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems Scot Desort writes...
Aaron-
Since you own both, and seem to be in the upper percentile of technically savy telecom people on this list, have YOU personally been able to gather any significant data showing that the Ascend offers a greater percentage of your customers a "better" connection than on the Hiper?
Unfortunatly in our network we have a number of problems that prevent us from comparing the two with any statistical rigor. First is the lack of (or I don't know how to get at them) the same connection quality indicators on the Maxes that we have on the USR's (block error rate, retrains, etc). Second is that our Maxes are on phone numbers that we have allowed our customers to self-select in using. Most are probably Macs, people with rockwell modems, and we've our CLEC has has some inter-office trunking issues that cause people to use the Maxes (they are still on the ILEC). We do have some maxes on our CLEC, it might be fun sometime to set up a peecee to continuously make test calls to the USR's and Maxes, record the results (by dumping the modem registers) and compare the two. I wonder if anyone has a program to do this?
(By better, it may even mean a "subjective" quality of the connection, where the connect speed to both NAS's is the same, but the connection throughput is better, or just "seems and feels" faster to the end user)
The few tests we've made have the 3com's handily beating the Ascends in throughput (FTP of a random-data file) for the same current connection rate. But for some reason the 3com's have some problems in MPP performance that makes the Ascends faster, the last time we tested (at least 6 months ago). -- Aaron Nabil - 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. - 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.
Jason A. Nunnelley writes...
So, if I understand you correctly: Your experience says Ascend is just a better web browsing customer Access Server.
I didn't say that.
And, you can't really get a good data spread due to the local line issues being a tad different.
I said that I couldn't draw statically valid conclusions because I couldn't get useful data on connection quality from the Ascends, that our customers had already self-selected between Ascends and 3coms based on their own subjective interpretations of which one "worked better", and that they were on different LECs. As for the local lines being a "tad" different, they are much, much more than a "tad" different.
I wonder, why would the PPP be slower on the 3COM?
Is PPP slower on your 3com chassis? PPP is faster on my 3com than my maxen.
Any ideas 3COM guys?
Jason
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Nabil Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 6:23 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
Scot Desort writes...
Aaron-
Since you own both, and seem to be in the upper percentile of technically savy telecom people on this list, have YOU personally been able to gather any significant data showing that the Ascend offers a greater percentage of your customers a "better" connection than on the Hiper?
Unfortunatly in our network we have a number of problems that prevent us from comparing the two with any statistical rigor. First is the lack of (or I don't know how to get at them) the same connection quality indicators on the Maxes that we have on the USR's (block error rate, retrains, etc). Second is that our Maxes are on phone numbers that we have allowed our customers to self-select in using. Most are probably Macs, people with rockwell modems, and we've our CLEC has has some inter-office trunking issues that cause people to use the Maxes (they are still on the ILEC).
We do have some maxes on our CLEC, it might be fun sometime to set up a peecee to continuously make test calls to the USR's and Maxes, record the results (by dumping the modem registers) and compare the two. I wonder if anyone has a program to do this?
(By better, it may even mean a "subjective" quality of the connection, where the connect speed to both NAS's is the same, but the connection throughput is better, or just "seems and feels" faster to the end user)
The few tests we've made have the 3com's handily beating the Ascends in throughput (FTP of a random-data file) for the same current connection rate. But for some reason the 3com's have some problems in MPP performance that makes the Ascends faster, the last time we tested (at least 6 months ago).
-- Aaron Nabil - 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.
OK, this means: "I can't tell anything useful as a comparison between the 2, due to the conditions of my use." I understand that now. I thought you were saying there were documented or data-supported PPP diferences between the 2. -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Nabil Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 7:56 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems Jason A. Nunnelley writes...
So, if I understand you correctly: Your experience says Ascend is just a better web browsing customer Access Server.
I didn't say that.
And, you can't really get a good data spread due to the local line issues being a tad different.
I said that I couldn't draw statically valid conclusions because I couldn't get useful data on connection quality from the Ascends, that our customers had already self-selected between Ascends and 3coms based on their own subjective interpretations of which one "worked better", and that they were on different LECs. As for the local lines being a "tad" different, they are much, much more than a "tad" different.
I wonder, why would the PPP be slower on the 3COM?
Is PPP slower on your 3com chassis? PPP is faster on my 3com than my maxen.
Any ideas 3COM guys?
Jason
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Nabil Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 6:23 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
Scot Desort writes...
Aaron-
Since you own both, and seem to be in the upper percentile of technically savy telecom people on this list, have YOU personally been able to gather any significant data showing that the Ascend offers a greater percentage
of
your customers a "better" connection than on the Hiper?
Unfortunatly in our network we have a number of problems that prevent us from comparing the two with any statistical rigor. First is the lack of (or I don't know how to get at them) the same connection quality indicators on the Maxes that we have on the USR's (block error rate, retrains, etc). Second is that our Maxes are on phone numbers that we have allowed our customers to self-select in using. Most are probably Macs, people with rockwell modems, and we've our CLEC has has some inter-office trunking issues that cause people to use the Maxes (they are still on the ILEC).
We do have some maxes on our CLEC, it might be fun sometime to set up a peecee to continuously make test calls to the USR's and Maxes, record the results (by dumping the modem registers) and compare the two. I wonder if anyone has a program to do this?
(By better, it may even mean a "subjective" quality of the connection, where the connect speed to both NAS's is the same, but the connection throughput is better, or just "seems and feels" faster to the end user)
The few tests we've made have the 3com's handily beating the Ascends in throughput (FTP of a random-data file) for the same current connection rate. But for some reason the 3com's have some problems in MPP performance that makes the Ascends faster, the last time we tested (at least 6 months ago).
-- Aaron Nabil - 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. - 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.
Jason A. Nunnelley writes...
OK, this means: "I can't tell anything useful as a comparison between the 2, due to the conditions of my use." I understand that now.
I didn't say that either. Why the desire to put words in my mouth? Everyone here can read what I wrote directly, they don't need it paraphrased. The question was if I had "...significant data showing that the Ascend offers a greater percentage of your customers a "better" connection than on the Hiper?", to which I was trying to explain why I neither had nor could I collect such data with any degree of confidence.
I thought you were saying there were documented or data-supported PPP diferences between the 2.
When I measured PPP performance, the 3com's were faster. When I measured MPP performance, the 3com were slower.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Nabil Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 7:56 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
Jason A. Nunnelley writes...
So, if I understand you correctly: Your experience says Ascend is just a better web browsing customer Access Server.
I didn't say that.
And, you can't really get a good data spread due to the local line issues being a tad different.
I said that I couldn't draw statically valid conclusions because I couldn't get useful data on connection quality from the Ascends, that our customers had already self-selected between Ascends and 3coms based on their own subjective interpretations of which one "worked better", and that they were on different LECs.
As for the local lines being a "tad" different, they are much, much more than a "tad" different.
I wonder, why would the PPP be slower on the 3COM?
Is PPP slower on your 3com chassis? PPP is faster on my 3com than my maxen.
Any ideas 3COM guys?
Jason
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Nabil Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 6:23 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
Scot Desort writes...
Aaron-
Since you own both, and seem to be in the upper percentile of technically savy telecom people on this list, have YOU personally been able to gather any significant data showing that the Ascend offers a greater percentage
of
your customers a "better" connection than on the Hiper?
Unfortunatly in our network we have a number of problems that prevent us from comparing the two with any statistical rigor. First is the lack of (or I don't know how to get at them) the same connection quality indicators on the Maxes that we have on the USR's (block error rate, retrains, etc). Second is that our Maxes are on phone numbers that we have allowed our customers to self-select in using. Most are probably Macs, people with rockwell modems, and we've our CLEC has has some inter-office trunking issues that cause people to use the Maxes (they are still on the ILEC).
We do have some maxes on our CLEC, it might be fun sometime to set up a peecee to continuously make test calls to the USR's and Maxes, record the results (by dumping the modem registers) and compare the two. I wonder if anyone has a program to do this?
(By better, it may even mean a "subjective" quality of the connection, where the connect speed to both NAS's is the same, but the connection throughput is better, or just "seems and feels" faster to the end user)
The few tests we've made have the 3com's handily beating the Ascends in throughput (FTP of a random-data file) for the same current connection rate. But for some reason the 3com's have some problems in MPP performance that makes the Ascends faster, the last time we tested (at least 6 months ago).
-- Aaron Nabil
- 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.
- 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.
-- Aaron Nabil - 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.
We also own both and have definitely seen more frequent V90 connects using Ascend. This was not always the case... however now it definitely is. As stated again and again 3com has acknowledged the fact that Ascend's connect in cases where the 3com TC will not. There is an open issue on it and they had attempted to resolve it however it seems they have put on a back burner because it's not an easy fix. One high level Tech on this sort of situation is not going to resolve it and it seems this is what they want to commit since a ton of Customers aren't complaining. The reason people aren't complaining is because most ISP's do not have both Ascend and 3com to compare back to back... if more did I am sure they would be scared. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Scot Desort <scot@njaccess.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 8:06 PM Subject: RE: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems Aaron- Since you own both, and seem to be in the upper percentile of technically savy telecom people on this list, have YOU personally been able to gather any significant data showing that the Ascend offers a greater percentage of your customers a "better" connection than on the Hiper? (By better, it may even mean a "subjective" quality of the connection, where the connect speed to both NAS's is the same, but the connection throughput is better, or just "seems and feels" faster to the end user) -Scot -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Nabil Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 3:59 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems I have _own_ both Max's and Hiperdsps.
. . .
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Yes I would be very interested in Aaron's comments on Ascend vs. 3com, he is very telco savvy and it would seem that if their was a problem, he probably would have seen it. On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Scot Desort wrote:
Aaron-
Since you own both, and seem to be in the upper percentile of technically savy telecom people on this list, have YOU personally been able to gather any significant data showing that the Ascend offers a greater percentage of your customers a "better" connection than on the Hiper?
(By better, it may even mean a "subjective" quality of the connection, where the connect speed to both NAS's is the same, but the connection throughput is better, or just "seems and feels" faster to the end user)
-Scot
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Aaron Nabil Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 3:59 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
I have _own_ both Max's and Hiperdsps.
. . .
- 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.
----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881) - 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.
I wonder how much of it is pschological vs. real. For example, ever post to your customers about how you made an upgrade to something like your mail server, and then they start calling tech support and say things like "ever since you all upgraded the server, I can't connect fast". I often thought, if you told the customers all of them, that you were upgrading your modem code tonight, and wanted their feedback the following day,and you really didn't touch anything, I am betting 25% would say they connect faster, 25% would say they connect slower, and 50% would notice no change.........i'm telling you I believe in this :) Its like those customers who's modems report the DTE speed of 115,200, and when you fix them up, it only reports say 28800, yet they swear the connection is not as fast anymore. Well if a customer visually sees a v90 connect, and its a terrible connection, would they claim that connection was faster than a really solid v.34 connect? What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections. On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Greg Coffey wrote:
I've never had a customer call the v90 connection "unreliable" to the competition's Ascends. The feedback that I've got from customers is that they get better throughput and are not dissatified with the connects to the Ascends. They are using USR modems to dial and they connect consistently with Ascends at v90 rates, usually 40something. They never connect at v90 to our TC racks from the same location, using the same PC, software, phone lines, config, etc. I don't know the exact cause, they seem to be on the fringe of the v90 availability area. 3Com described it to me as a "bug" in the Ascend server firmware. All I know is that it has cost me customers in the past and continues to be an issue that I have no answer for when it comes up. I have gone to great lengths to explain to them what I have learned many months ago from 3Com but I don't think they believe me. Would you believe that 3Com/USR modems connect better to the competition than their own racks? Thankfully, it is a somewhat rare occurance and I only have to explain once or twice a month. I really don't know for sure to what extent it really occurs. I do know that I have lost customers over this and it continues to be an issue. I am getting tired of no news to update the situation though. I'm also afraid that it will harm our reputation if this continues as is. Word of mouth is still our best marketing and this will grow in significance with time.
At 11:15 AM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
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Thanks,
Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM
- 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.
----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881) - 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.
Less than 1 in 50 customers know the difference between a connection that says 56K and only downloads 2-3K, and a good strong 34K connection delivering a 5-6K download speed. I actually still get better connections through v34 on 60% of my customers. But, they insist on V.90. Do they know better? No. Does it really matter? No. You have to sell what they want. That is why Ascend connects to crappy connections. That's what the customers want. My question is will 3COM out perform the others where the customer looks. That is really all that matters. If they think the competition is better - they are, cause they now have your money to grow. As for relying on customers' comments to make Network Decisions... does anyone really do that? I know my customers don't know the difference. I rely on data that makes sense. I know I told no one when I first switched to 3COM and yet, I did get positive feedback immediately. Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Brian Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 2:19 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems I wonder how much of it is pschological vs. real. For example, ever post to your customers about how you made an upgrade to something like your mail server, and then they start calling tech support and say things like "ever since you all upgraded the server, I can't connect fast". I often thought, if you told the customers all of them, that you were upgrading your modem code tonight, and wanted their feedback the following day,and you really didn't touch anything, I am betting 25% would say they connect faster, 25% would say they connect slower, and 50% would notice no change.........i'm telling you I believe in this :) Its like those customers who's modems report the DTE speed of 115,200, and when you fix them up, it only reports say 28800, yet they swear the connection is not as fast anymore. Well if a customer visually sees a v90 connect, and its a terrible connection, would they claim that connection was faster than a really solid v.34 connect? What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections. On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Greg Coffey wrote:
I've never had a customer call the v90 connection "unreliable" to the competition's Ascends. The feedback that I've got from customers is that they get better throughput and are not dissatified with the connects to the Ascends. They are using USR modems to dial and they connect consistently with Ascends at v90 rates, usually 40something. They never connect at v90 to our TC racks from the same location, using the same PC, software, phone lines, config, etc. I don't know the exact cause, they seem to be on the fringe of the v90 availability area. 3Com described it to me as a "bug" in the Ascend server firmware. All I know is that it has cost me customers in the past and continues to be an issue that I have no answer for when it comes up. I have gone to great lengths to explain to them what I have learned many months ago from 3Com but I don't think they believe me. Would you believe that 3Com/USR modems connect better to the competition than their own racks? Thankfully, it is a somewhat rare occurance and I only have to explain once or twice a month. I really don't know for sure to what extent it really occurs. I do know that I have lost customers over this and it continues to be an issue. I am getting tired of no news to update the situation though. I'm also afraid that it will harm our reputation if this continues as is. Word of mouth is still our best marketing and this will grow in significance with time.
At 11:15 AM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
- 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.
Thanks,
Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM
- 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.
----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881) - 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. - 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.
At 05:02 PM 10/17/99 -0700, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
Less than 1 in 50 customers know the difference between a connection that says 56K and only downloads 2-3K, and a good strong 34K connection delivering a 5-6K download speed.
I disagree. first, I've never seen a v.34 connection sustain 5-6K on a binary transfer. ascii maybe.. but even if it did, that's totally dependant on compression algorithms and the character of the data. It has nothing to do with the actual number of bits xfered.. Next, a v.90 connection by definition has to yield better than 2-3kps (actual bits) downstream.. Last, even lusers can read dialog boxes when they download a windows upgrade, ftp a file, or read binary newsgroups.. You underestimate your customers ability to make an observation or judgement.. Furthermore, I'm not willing to lose 1 in 50 customers.. that's 2% of our customer base..
As for relying on customers' comments to make Network Decisions... does anyone really do that?
absolutely.. otherwise I might chose 1200 baud modems to save money.. ;)
I know my customers don't know the difference.
<sigh>
I rely on data that makes sense.
and what *data* is that?
I know I told no one when I first switched to 3COM and yet, I did get positive feedback immediately.
But I thought that customers don't know the difference? And that it doesn't matter what customers feedback is because the comments don't impact network decision making.. Allen
Jason
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Brian Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 2:19 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
I wonder how much of it is pschological vs. real. For example, ever post to your customers about how you made an upgrade to something like your mail server, and then they start calling tech support and say things like "ever since you all upgraded the server, I can't connect fast". I often thought, if you told the customers all of them, that you were upgrading your modem code tonight, and wanted their feedback the following day,and you really didn't touch anything, I am betting 25% would say they connect faster, 25% would say they connect slower, and 50% would notice no change.........i'm telling you I believe in this :)
Its like those customers who's modems report the DTE speed of 115,200, and when you fix them up, it only reports say 28800, yet they swear the connection is not as fast anymore.
Well if a customer visually sees a v90 connect, and its a terrible connection, would they claim that connection was faster than a really solid v.34 connect?
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Greg Coffey wrote:
I've never had a customer call the v90 connection "unreliable" to the competition's Ascends. The feedback that I've got from customers is that they get better throughput and are not dissatified with the connects to the Ascends. They are using USR modems to dial and they connect consistently with Ascends at v90 rates, usually 40something. They never connect at v90 to our TC racks from the same location, using the same PC, software, phone lines, config, etc. I don't know the exact cause, they seem to be on the fringe of the v90 availability area. 3Com described it to me as a "bug" in the Ascend server firmware. All I know is that it has cost me customers in the past and continues to be an issue that I have no answer for when it comes up. I have gone to great lengths to explain to them what I have learned many months ago from 3Com but I don't think they believe me. Would you believe that 3Com/USR modems connect better to the competition than their own racks? Thankfully, it is a somewhat rare occurance and I only have to explain once or twice a month. I really don't know for sure to what extent it really occurs. I do know that I have lost customers over this and it continues to be an issue. I am getting tired of no news to update the situation though. I'm also afraid that it will harm our reputation if this continues as is. Word of mouth is still our best marketing and this will grow in significance with time.
At 11:15 AM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
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Thanks,
Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM
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----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881)
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OK, ouch! You made good points off a reaction note, not a well thought out explanation of procedural decision making. Let me clarify: Often a customer response is reactionary and not factual. EX: you get a call from a customer telling you that your upgrade has screwed up their connection. Now, you suck! It turns out that they couldn't get their modem to say 56K, and they think that makes the difference. So, without doing in depth research as to the real data speed they connect at (looking at the data transfer rate or connection rate by polling the modems), you assume this one comment means you have a bad deal. Or, perhaps it is several calls. We got a rash of K-Flex callers right after setting up the 3COM. So, we assumed there was a 3COM issue. In a way there was. We had a truckload of people that old techs had helped get K-Flex working. Guess what!? It did not work all that hot with the 3COM. Upgrades to v.90 - no more trouble. Now, if I see a chunk leaving me (more than before) with 3COM - screw 3COM. I am loyal to whomever get's me paid. I totally agree that 2% loss of customers is unacceptable. They know that when they can't download ICQ in under 30 minutes, you have a speed issue. And, of course I listen to my customers. It is not my sole and only mode of information gathering. The fact is: most of my customers own 3COM or USR modems. They connect Much Better to 3COM than LT (Livingston). As a matter of fact, I can't get certain modems to connect to Livingston at all (without an overhall of the factory drivers). So, good point! I was being general and assuming. I really do listen to my customers (why I have v.90 - good point). I also know that 2% loss is way to much. And, I also understand that most customers recognize a serious drop in quality connections. However, I really meant to comment more on the knee-jerk reactions to a hand full of customer complaints and the idea that they understand a few data bit per second change in speed. They just want to connect every time without a connection issue. I am seeing a bunch of drops. Now, that is what concerns me! When I see 5% drops, I get to wondering if I am about to lose 5% of my customer base due to 3COM. You don't see this stuff on Livingston's groups. There is not a constant impaling of the programmers and support crew. Why?! Because they do a great job - that's why. I am seriously thinking about dumping 3COM. So, make a public or private suggestion based on numbers. Who should I trade in for? I do not want to ride a sinking ship to loser-ville. BTW, once I get my DNA results to get technical support from 3COM, I rather like their tech support. I just prefer the response LT support gives you. They don't have to complete a ID Proofing contest before sharing important information or software. Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Allen Marsalis Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 3:59 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: RE: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems At 05:02 PM 10/17/99 -0700, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
Less than 1 in 50 customers know the difference between a connection that says 56K and only downloads 2-3K, and a good strong 34K connection delivering a 5-6K download speed.
I disagree. first, I've never seen a v.34 connection sustain 5-6K on a binary transfer. ascii maybe.. but even if it did, that's totally dependant on compression algorithms and the character of the data. It has nothing to do with the actual number of bits xfered.. Next, a v.90 connection by definition has to yield better than 2-3kps (actual bits) downstream.. Last, even lusers can read dialog boxes when they download a windows upgrade, ftp a file, or read binary newsgroups.. You underestimate your customers ability to make an observation or judgement.. Furthermore, I'm not willing to lose 1 in 50 customers.. that's 2% of our customer base..
As for relying on customers' comments to make Network Decisions... does anyone really do that?
absolutely.. otherwise I might chose 1200 baud modems to save money.. ;)
I know my customers don't know the difference.
<sigh>
I rely on data that makes sense.
and what *data* is that?
I know I told no one when I first switched to 3COM and yet, I did get positive feedback immediately.
But I thought that customers don't know the difference? And that it doesn't matter what customers feedback is because the comments don't impact network decision making.. Allen
Jason
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Brian Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 2:19 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
I wonder how much of it is pschological vs. real. For example, ever post to your customers about how you made an upgrade to something like your mail server, and then they start calling tech support and say things like "ever since you all upgraded the server, I can't connect fast". I often thought, if you told the customers all of them, that you were upgrading your modem code tonight, and wanted their feedback the following day,and you really didn't touch anything, I am betting 25% would say they connect faster, 25% would say they connect slower, and 50% would notice no change.........i'm telling you I believe in this :)
Its like those customers who's modems report the DTE speed of 115,200, and when you fix them up, it only reports say 28800, yet they swear the connection is not as fast anymore.
Well if a customer visually sees a v90 connect, and its a terrible connection, would they claim that connection was faster than a really solid v.34 connect?
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Greg Coffey wrote:
I've never had a customer call the v90 connection "unreliable" to the competition's Ascends. The feedback that I've got from customers is that they get better throughput and are not dissatified with the connects to the Ascends. They are using USR modems to dial and they connect consistently with Ascends at v90 rates, usually 40something. They never connect at
v90
to our TC racks from the same location, using the same PC, software, phone lines, config, etc. I don't know the exact cause, they seem to be on the fringe of the v90 availability area. 3Com described it to me as a "bug" in the Ascend server firmware. All I know is that it has cost me customers in the past and continues to be an issue that I have no answer for when it comes up. I have gone to great lengths to explain to them what I have learned many months ago from 3Com but I don't think they believe me. Would you believe that 3Com/USR modems connect better to the competition than their own racks? Thankfully, it is a somewhat rare occurance and I only have to explain once or twice a month. I really don't know for sure to what extent it really occurs. I do know that I have lost customers over this and it continues to be an issue. I am getting tired of no news to update the situation though. I'm also afraid that it will harm our reputation if this continues as is. Word of mouth is still our best marketing and this will grow in significance with time.
At 11:15 AM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
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Thanks,
Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM
- 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.
----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881)
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On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Brian wrote:
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
No doubt about that; I've seen the stuff you mentioned happening...one can't really read *too* much into customer complaints (or praises) except a feeling of customer satisfaction. But if a customer is unsatisfied for the wrong (or misunderstood) reasons, the question is where you want to stand on it. For example...I had a 3rd party actively test us vs. our competition WRT dialup connect speeds/xfer rates. The downside is that they found that for most client-side modems, our initial connect speed was lower than the competition. Funny thing was, in many cases, the competition's higher initial speed would get retrained down....while ours either remained the same or retrained up. The other huge point that was found was that we had faster overall xfer rates, even with our lower connect speeds. This point was pursued further, and it was found that a 33.6k connection thru us gave faster xfer rates than our competitors' 43-46k rates! Rather interesting what a solid connection with no retransmits can do up against a shaky, albeit faster, connection with a bunch of retransmits. The above results made me feel good, but there's still the question of what to do about it. The only thing the average customer sees is the initial connect speed, and in the majority of cases, it's quite useless to start telling them about retraining, retransmits, and how the real measure is xfer rate anyway. Most just think you're shooting them a load of bull, trying to swamp them with computer-talk to cover yourself. Me, I give it a shot anyway...if they understand, great, if not, oh well, they're not really my target customer anyway. That may sound like the age-old 'sour grapes' attitude, but know that I'm not in biz to get the biggest part of the market...I'm here to skim the cream and garner the best customers. When you're targeting power-users and businesses, you wind up with people who understand more of the details. But much harder if your target is the average joe, my guess would be to switch to whatever platform gave you the highest initial connect so that all the ones who guage everything by their initial speed will be happy. Or plunge into the murky deep and switch their connect speed reporting to the DTE rate so they can be amazed at your super 115k connects. (: But as your message said, it's hard to trust customer appraisals of your speeds. If you want to know the scoop, get a 3rd party who a) knows what they're doing, and b) has no interest in the outcome to run tests and report back. PS. No probs here with 3com client modem connections that I can tell. But then again, I don't have any Ascends to compare to. This is with the following: HARC: h/w ver. 1.0.0 s/w ver. 4.0.30 HDSP: h/w ver. 0.49.0 s/w ver. 1.2.5 - 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.
What you can count on is Churn. If customers leave you - you can see the difference. I have lost fewer customers with connection issues with 3COM than Livingston (with the PM3 that is). I have never had a connection issue with the PM2e30 (analog). It is 100%! So, what should I use when my 3COM contract runs out? Any sugestions? I guess everyone considers 3COM a loser when it comes to support. Yet, the largest ISPs use it. Why? M$pring, MCI, etc. Why? -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Lon R. Stockton, Jr. Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 3:52 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Brian wrote:
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
No doubt about that; I've seen the stuff you mentioned happening...one can't really read *too* much into customer complaints (or praises) except a feeling of customer satisfaction. But if a customer is unsatisfied for the wrong (or misunderstood) reasons, the question is where you want to stand on it. For example...I had a 3rd party actively test us vs. our competition WRT dialup connect speeds/xfer rates. The downside is that they found that for most client-side modems, our initial connect speed was lower than the competition. Funny thing was, in many cases, the competition's higher initial speed would get retrained down....while ours either remained the same or retrained up. The other huge point that was found was that we had faster overall xfer rates, even with our lower connect speeds. This point was pursued further, and it was found that a 33.6k connection thru us gave faster xfer rates than our competitors' 43-46k rates! Rather interesting what a solid connection with no retransmits can do up against a shaky, albeit faster, connection with a bunch of retransmits. The above results made me feel good, but there's still the question of what to do about it. The only thing the average customer sees is the initial connect speed, and in the majority of cases, it's quite useless to start telling them about retraining, retransmits, and how the real measure is xfer rate anyway. Most just think you're shooting them a load of bull, trying to swamp them with computer-talk to cover yourself. Me, I give it a shot anyway...if they understand, great, if not, oh well, they're not really my target customer anyway. That may sound like the age-old 'sour grapes' attitude, but know that I'm not in biz to get the biggest part of the market...I'm here to skim the cream and garner the best customers. When you're targeting power-users and businesses, you wind up with people who understand more of the details. But much harder if your target is the average joe, my guess would be to switch to whatever platform gave you the highest initial connect so that all the ones who guage everything by their initial speed will be happy. Or plunge into the murky deep and switch their connect speed reporting to the DTE rate so they can be amazed at your super 115k connects. (: But as your message said, it's hard to trust customer appraisals of your speeds. If you want to know the scoop, get a 3rd party who a) knows what they're doing, and b) has no interest in the outcome to run tests and report back. PS. No probs here with 3com client modem connections that I can tell. But then again, I don't have any Ascends to compare to. This is with the following: HARC: h/w ver. 1.0.0 s/w ver. 4.0.30 HDSP: h/w ver. 0.49.0 s/w ver. 1.2.5 - 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. - 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.
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
What you can count on is Churn. If customers leave you - you can see the difference.
Yep, that's why I target power-users and businesses. They understand the myriad issues of the speed thing and are willing to look deeper than that initial connect into what they're actually getting. My churn rate is less than 0.5%, despite the fact that I'm more expensive ($25/mo for limited-150hour vs competitions <$20 unlimited). Our largest reason for account termination is 'moving out of area'; we only lose about 1 customer every three months to our competition. Conversely, we gain about 5-10 per month from them...always their best customers too...skimmin' the cream, as it were. Lower tech support costs because our customers generally have more, umm, intelligence. [on the other hand, when they're power users and businesses, especially when they're paying higher prices, when they do have a problem you gotta jump on it quick, and you can't bullshit your way through *anything*. The other thing is that you'll *never* have the biggest slice of the market...just the best slice.] BTW, for anyone interested, a good way to get more accurate stats on where your customers are going when they leave you is to provide free email forwarding for customers who terminate. We give any customer who terminates (for any reason) free email forwarding to their new address for a month. Of course, to activate it, they have to give us their new address. (: Doesn't make it 100% perfect, of course, but will cut through the ones who say 'terminating because we don't need internet/our computer is broken' and then give an email address at the competition. (:
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Lon R. Stockton, Jr. Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 3:52 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Brian wrote:
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
No doubt about that; I've seen the stuff you mentioned happening...one can't really read *too* much into customer complaints (or praises) except a feeling of customer satisfaction. But if a customer is unsatisfied for the wrong (or misunderstood) reasons, the question is where you want to stand on it.
For example...I had a 3rd party actively test us vs. our competition WRT dialup connect speeds/xfer rates. The downside is that they found that for most client-side modems, our initial connect speed was lower than the competition. Funny thing was, in many cases, the competition's higher initial speed would get retrained down....while ours either remained the same or retrained up.
The other huge point that was found was that we had faster overall xfer rates, even with our lower connect speeds. This point was pursued further, and it was found that a 33.6k connection thru us gave faster xfer rates than our competitors' 43-46k rates! Rather interesting what a solid connection with no retransmits can do up against a shaky, albeit faster, connection with a bunch of retransmits.
The above results made me feel good, but there's still the question of what to do about it. The only thing the average customer sees is the initial connect speed, and in the majority of cases, it's quite useless to start telling them about retraining, retransmits, and how the real measure is xfer rate anyway. Most just think you're shooting them a load of bull, trying to swamp them with computer-talk to cover yourself.
Me, I give it a shot anyway...if they understand, great, if not, oh well, they're not really my target customer anyway. That may sound like the age-old 'sour grapes' attitude, but know that I'm not in biz to get the biggest part of the market...I'm here to skim the cream and garner the best customers. When you're targeting power-users and businesses, you wind up with people who understand more of the details.
But much harder if your target is the average joe, my guess would be to switch to whatever platform gave you the highest initial connect so that all the ones who guage everything by their initial speed will be happy. Or plunge into the murky deep and switch their connect speed reporting to the DTE rate so they can be amazed at your super 115k connects. (:
But as your message said, it's hard to trust customer appraisals of your speeds. If you want to know the scoop, get a 3rd party who a) knows what they're doing, and b) has no interest in the outcome to run tests and report back.
PS. No probs here with 3com client modem connections that I can tell. But then again, I don't have any Ascends to compare to. This is with the following:
HARC: h/w ver. 1.0.0 s/w ver. 4.0.30 HDSP: h/w ver. 0.49.0 s/w ver. 1.2.5
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On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
What you can count on is Churn. If customers leave you - you can see the difference. I have lost fewer customers with connection issues with 3COM than Livingston (with the PM3 that is). I have never had a connection issue with the PM2e30 (analog). It is 100%!
So, what should I use when my 3COM contract runs out? Any sugestions? I guess everyone considers 3COM a loser when it comes to support. Yet, the largest ISPs use it. Why? M$pring, MCI, etc.
In its heyday, one could say the AOL(ans), mindspring, earthlink(?) used TC's........but companies do switch sometimes, and alot now run Ascend gear. worldcom i know is ascend, and I believe AOL is moving in more ascend. AOL always had ascend to do their kflex stuff. But this is a good point, who are the large guys and what are they using today? Can anyone help fill in the chart? AOL 3com/ascend (percentages?) splitrock(prodigy) Bay Worldcom(uunet) Ascend Mindspring 3com Cybergate 3com anyone know abou the other big players?
Why?
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Lon R. Stockton, Jr. Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 3:52 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Brian wrote:
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
No doubt about that; I've seen the stuff you mentioned happening...one can't really read *too* much into customer complaints (or praises) except a feeling of customer satisfaction. But if a customer is unsatisfied for the wrong (or misunderstood) reasons, the question is where you want to stand on it.
For example...I had a 3rd party actively test us vs. our competition WRT dialup connect speeds/xfer rates. The downside is that they found that for most client-side modems, our initial connect speed was lower than the competition. Funny thing was, in many cases, the competition's higher initial speed would get retrained down....while ours either remained the same or retrained up.
The other huge point that was found was that we had faster overall xfer rates, even with our lower connect speeds. This point was pursued further, and it was found that a 33.6k connection thru us gave faster xfer rates than our competitors' 43-46k rates! Rather interesting what a solid connection with no retransmits can do up against a shaky, albeit faster, connection with a bunch of retransmits.
The above results made me feel good, but there's still the question of what to do about it. The only thing the average customer sees is the initial connect speed, and in the majority of cases, it's quite useless to start telling them about retraining, retransmits, and how the real measure is xfer rate anyway. Most just think you're shooting them a load of bull, trying to swamp them with computer-talk to cover yourself.
Me, I give it a shot anyway...if they understand, great, if not, oh well, they're not really my target customer anyway. That may sound like the age-old 'sour grapes' attitude, but know that I'm not in biz to get the biggest part of the market...I'm here to skim the cream and garner the best customers. When you're targeting power-users and businesses, you wind up with people who understand more of the details.
But much harder if your target is the average joe, my guess would be to switch to whatever platform gave you the highest initial connect so that all the ones who guage everything by their initial speed will be happy. Or plunge into the murky deep and switch their connect speed reporting to the DTE rate so they can be amazed at your super 115k connects. (:
But as your message said, it's hard to trust customer appraisals of your speeds. If you want to know the scoop, get a 3rd party who a) knows what they're doing, and b) has no interest in the outcome to run tests and report back.
PS. No probs here with 3com client modem connections that I can tell. But then again, I don't have any Ascends to compare to. This is with the following:
HARC: h/w ver. 1.0.0 s/w ver. 4.0.30 HDSP: h/w ver. 0.49.0 s/w ver. 1.2.5
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----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881) - 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.
This table is from 808hi.com. Don't know how up-to-date it is, but here it is anyway: 24-Seven Access Numbers V.90, K56Flex ** AltaVista Free Access+ V.90, K56Flex Bay Networks America On-Line V.90, K56Flex Ascend AT&T Worldnet Access Numbers V.90 3Com BellSouth.net V.90 Cisco Cable & Wireless ** Compuserve very limited 56k availability ** Concentric Access Numbers V.90, K56Flex Bay Networks CWIA Access Numbers V.90, K56Flex ** Dotnow.com+ V.90,K56Flex Bay Networks Earthlink Access Numbers V.90, K56Flex Ascend Erol's Access Numbers V.90, K56Flex ** FreeI.net V.90 ** GridNet (WorldCom) V.90, x2 3Com GTE Internet Access Numbers V.90, K56Flex Ascend IBM Global Network Access Numbers V.90, x2 3Com MCI WorldCom V.90 Microsoft MSN V.90, K56Flex Ascend Mindspring Access Numbers V.90, x2 3Com Netcom Access Numbers V.90 ** Netzero V.90, K56Flex ** NTR.net Access Numbers V.90 ** Pacific Bell Internet K56Flex ** Prodigy Internet+ V.90, x2 Bay Networks Sprynet Access Numbers V.90 ** Toast.net Access Numbers V.90 ** UUNet Access Numbers V.90, K56Flex Ascend + - AltaVista Free Access and Dotnow allow you to set up a free access account; Along with Prodigy, the same access #s, provided by Splitrock are used. Users may experience busies, network bottlenecks/failures, and interoperability problems with any of these services. * - Not all providers have 56k access on all numbers ** - Not known; If you know, please let me know! -Scot -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Brian Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 10:07 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: RE: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems In its heyday, one could say the AOL(ans), mindspring, earthlink(?) used TC's........but companies do switch sometimes, and alot now run Ascend gear. worldcom i know is ascend, and I believe AOL is moving in more ascend. AOL always had ascend to do their kflex stuff. But this is a good point, who are the large guys and what are they using today? Can anyone help fill in the chart? AOL 3com/ascend (percentages?) splitrock(prodigy) Bay Worldcom(uunet) Ascend Mindspring 3com Cybergate 3com anyone know abou the other big players? - 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.
Brian wrote:
In its heyday, one could say the AOL(ans), mindspring, earthlink(?) used TC's........but companies do switch sometimes, and alot now run Ascend gear. worldcom i know is ascend, and I believe AOL is moving in more ascend. AOL always had ascend to do their kflex stuff.
But this is a good point, who are the large guys and what are they using today? Can anyone help fill in the chart?
AOL 3com/ascend (percentages?) splitrock(prodigy) Bay Worldcom(uunet) Ascend Mindspring 3com Cybergate 3com
anyone know abou the other big players?
AT&T (former IBM Global Network) uses 3Com and is migrating their entire Worldnet dialup to 3Com from what I have been told by AT&T. AT&T said they did extensive research after buying the IBM Global Network and determined that the 3Com NAS was superior on first time connections and overall throughput. Voyager switched from Cisco AS5248's to TC chassis (old Quads and new HiPers) in their Detroit POP since their IPO. Concentric uses Bay 5399, but Nortel is a major stockholder. Ziplink uses the Bay 5399, and again Nortel is a major stockholder. AOL no longer runs their network - they use WorldCom managed modem ports which run on Lucent Max TNT. Level3 uses Lucent Max TNT for their managed modem pools. FlashNet uses Lucent Max. Ameritech.net used to use 3Com, haven't seen one of their pops in a long time. MegaPop uses Lucent Max. BTW: The Bay is the worse NAS on the market, IMHO. If you want to talk about connection problems, buy a 5399. -Ron GLISnet, Inc. +1 810/939.9885 - 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.
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Lon R. Stockton, Jr. wrote:
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Brian wrote:
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
<much deleted> They have those java applets on the web where you can hit a submit and it tests the speed of your connection (thruput), but even those are flawed: 1. caches can play tricks with these things 2. it tests your connectivity into wherever the file is being downloaded more than testing your modems thruput. Brian
But as your message said, it's hard to trust customer appraisals of your speeds. If you want to know the scoop, get a 3rd party who a) knows what they're doing, and b) has no interest in the outcome to run tests and report back.
PS. No probs here with 3com client modem connections that I can tell. But then again, I don't have any Ascends to compare to. This is with the following:
HARC: h/w ver. 1.0.0 s/w ver. 4.0.30 HDSP: h/w ver. 0.49.0 s/w ver. 1.2.5
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----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881) - 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.
BINGO! We have a winner. I have had a lot of good experiences with making a "Connection Page" that shows connection speeds lifted from the NMC card. Most people hit that page after they log in and see what the DSP's say they are getting. Ususally they are happy to see that they are "in the green" even though the band is from 37K to 53K. Kinda like stroking thier ego. Paul Farber Farber Technology farber@admin.f-tech.net Ph 570-628-5303 Fax 570-628-5545 On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Brian wrote:
I wonder how much of it is pschological vs. real. For example, ever post to your customers about how you made an upgrade to something like your mail server, and then they start calling tech support and say things like "ever since you all upgraded the server, I can't connect fast". I often thought, if you told the customers all of them, that you were upgrading your modem code tonight, and wanted their feedback the following day,and you really didn't touch anything, I am betting 25% would say they connect faster, 25% would say they connect slower, and 50% would notice no change.........i'm telling you I believe in this :)
Its like those customers who's modems report the DTE speed of 115,200, and when you fix them up, it only reports say 28800, yet they swear the connection is not as fast anymore.
Well if a customer visually sees a v90 connect, and its a terrible connection, would they claim that connection was faster than a really solid v.34 connect?
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Greg Coffey wrote:
I've never had a customer call the v90 connection "unreliable" to the competition's Ascends. The feedback that I've got from customers is that they get better throughput and are not dissatified with the connects to the Ascends. They are using USR modems to dial and they connect consistently with Ascends at v90 rates, usually 40something. They never connect at v90 to our TC racks from the same location, using the same PC, software, phone lines, config, etc. I don't know the exact cause, they seem to be on the fringe of the v90 availability area. 3Com described it to me as a "bug" in the Ascend server firmware. All I know is that it has cost me customers in the past and continues to be an issue that I have no answer for when it comes up. I have gone to great lengths to explain to them what I have learned many months ago from 3Com but I don't think they believe me. Would you believe that 3Com/USR modems connect better to the competition than their own racks? Thankfully, it is a somewhat rare occurance and I only have to explain once or twice a month. I really don't know for sure to what extent it really occurs. I do know that I have lost customers over this and it continues to be an issue. I am getting tired of no news to update the situation though. I'm also afraid that it will harm our reputation if this continues as is. Word of mouth is still our best marketing and this will grow in significance with time.
At 11:15 AM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
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Thanks,
Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM
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----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881)
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At 09:45 AM 10/18/99 -0400, Paul Farber wrote:
BINGO! We have a winner.
I have had a lot of good experiences with making a "Connection Page" that shows connection speeds lifted from the NMC card. Most people hit that page after they log in and see what the DSP's say they are getting. Ususally they are happy to see that they are "in the green" even though the band is from 37K to 53K.
Care to share your mrtg.cfg entry for this? :) -- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net - 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.
It's a perl script. Not to accurate (3Com's off by one snmp errors) and my inability to write good perl code). Give me an address and I send it to you. Paul Farber Farber Technology farber@admin.f-tech.net Ph 570-628-5303 Fax 570-628-5545 On Mon, 18 Oct 1999, K Mitchell wrote:
At 09:45 AM 10/18/99 -0400, Paul Farber wrote:
BINGO! We have a winner.
I have had a lot of good experiences with making a "Connection Page" that shows connection speeds lifted from the NMC card. Most people hit that page after they log in and see what the DSP's say they are getting. Ususally they are happy to see that they are "in the green" even though the band is from 37K to 53K.
Care to share your mrtg.cfg entry for this? :)
-- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net
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Thus spake farber@admin.f-tech.net
It's a perl script. Not to accurate (3Com's off by one snmp errors) and my inability to write good perl code).
Upgrade to the 6.x.x version of NMC code and these are all taken care of. :) Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to do this yet, but I have checked it out, and that version of code does indeed fix the problem. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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.
At 11:44 AM 10/18/99 -0400, Paul Farber wrote:
It's a perl script. Not to accurate (3Com's off by one snmp errors) and my inability to write good perl code).
Give me an address and I send it to you.
mitch@keyconn.net Thanks, -- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net - 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.
I also would appreciate a copy Thanks Eric Billeter Internet Engineer Cable One, Inc. eric.billeter@cableone.net 602-364-6462 -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of K Mitchell Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 10:42 AM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems At 11:44 AM 10/18/99 -0400, Paul Farber wrote:
It's a perl script. Not to accurate (3Com's off by one snmp errors) and my inability to write good perl code).
Give me an address and I send it to you.
mitch@keyconn.net Thanks, -- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net - 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. - 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.
I would like a copy as well, please. das@gol.com das farber@admin.f-tech.net (farber@admin.f-tech.net) spake:
It's a perl script. Not to accurate (3Com's off by one snmp errors) and my inability to write good perl code).
Give me an address and I send it to you.
Paul Farber Farber Technology farber@admin.f-tech.net Ph 570-628-5303 Fax 570-628-5545
On Mon, 18 Oct 1999, K Mitchell wrote:
At 09:45 AM 10/18/99 -0400, Paul Farber wrote:
BINGO! We have a winner.
I have had a lot of good experiences with making a "Connection Page" that shows connection speeds lifted from the NMC card. Most people hit that page after they log in and see what the DSP's say they are getting. Ususally they are happy to see that they are "in the green" even though the band is from 37K to 53K.
Care to share your mrtg.cfg entry for this? :)
-- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net
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-- ____________________________________________ Alex Substanley Global OnLine Japan Engineering Department Das Man TEL: 81-3-5334-1700 Systems Engineer FAX: 81-3-5334-1711 The Highest Quality Service, Bar None ____________________________________________ - 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.
That sounds cool. What script do you run for that? -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of farber@admin.f-tech.net Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 6:45 AM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) 3com V90 Problems BINGO! We have a winner. I have had a lot of good experiences with making a "Connection Page" that shows connection speeds lifted from the NMC card. Most people hit that page after they log in and see what the DSP's say they are getting. Ususally they are happy to see that they are "in the green" even though the band is from 37K to 53K. Kinda like stroking thier ego. Paul Farber Farber Technology farber@admin.f-tech.net Ph 570-628-5303 Fax 570-628-5545 On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Brian wrote:
I wonder how much of it is pschological vs. real. For example, ever post to your customers about how you made an upgrade to something like your mail server, and then they start calling tech support and say things like "ever since you all upgraded the server, I can't connect fast". I often thought, if you told the customers all of them, that you were upgrading your modem code tonight, and wanted their feedback the following day,and you really didn't touch anything, I am betting 25% would say they connect faster, 25% would say they connect slower, and 50% would notice no change.........i'm telling you I believe in this :)
Its like those customers who's modems report the DTE speed of 115,200, and when you fix them up, it only reports say 28800, yet they swear the connection is not as fast anymore.
Well if a customer visually sees a v90 connect, and its a terrible connection, would they claim that connection was faster than a really solid v.34 connect?
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Greg Coffey wrote:
I've never had a customer call the v90 connection "unreliable" to the competition's Ascends. The feedback that I've got from customers is that they get better throughput and are not dissatified with the connects to the Ascends. They are using USR modems to dial and they connect consistently with Ascends at v90 rates, usually 40something. They never connect at v90 to our TC racks from the same location, using the same PC, software, phone lines, config, etc. I don't know the exact cause, they seem to be on the fringe of the v90 availability area. 3Com described it to me as a "bug" in the Ascend server firmware. All I know is that it has cost me customers in the past and continues to be an issue that I have no answer for when it comes up. I have gone to great lengths to explain to them what I have learned many months ago from 3Com but I don't think they believe me. Would you believe that 3Com/USR modems connect better to the competition than their own racks? Thankfully, it is a somewhat rare occurance and I only have to explain once or twice a month. I really don't know for sure to what extent it really occurs. I do know that I have lost customers over this and it continues to be an issue. I am getting tired of no news to update the situation though. I'm also afraid that it will harm our reputation if this continues as is. Word of mouth is still our best marketing and this will grow in significance with time.
At 11:15 AM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
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Thanks,
Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM
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----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881)
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On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Brian wrote:
I wonder how much of it is pschological vs. real. For example, ever post to your customers about how you made an upgrade to something like your mail server, and then they start calling tech support and say things like "ever since you all upgraded the server, I can't connect fast". I often thought, if you told the customers all of them, that you were upgrading your modem code tonight, and wanted their feedback the following day,and you really didn't touch anything, I am betting 25% would say they connect faster, 25% would say they connect slower, and 50% would notice no change.........i'm telling you I believe in this :)
Duh! That's why telco's don't tell you when they're doing major local switch changes like they did to us at one of our pops and that in the process, they wound up changing options at the same time which were not certified with our system on initial installation. It took us more than a month to get them to admit they lied to us and changed options without telling us which impacted our ability to handle calls properly. If they tell people things are going to be changed, you can bet that anyone who suspects the telco will be reminded to call them and gripe about something even if it's not related to the change. Kevin
Its like those customers who's modems report the DTE speed of 115,200, and when you fix them up, it only reports say 28800, yet they swear the connection is not as fast anymore.
Well if a customer visually sees a v90 connect, and its a terrible connection, would they claim that connection was faster than a really solid v.34 connect?
What I am getting at, is raw data and numbers are the best, rather than the more subjective data of customers opinions about their connections.
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Greg Coffey wrote:
I've never had a customer call the v90 connection "unreliable" to the competition's Ascends. The feedback that I've got from customers is that they get better throughput and are not dissatified with the connects to the Ascends. They are using USR modems to dial and they connect consistently with Ascends at v90 rates, usually 40something. They never connect at v90 to our TC racks from the same location, using the same PC, software, phone lines, config, etc. I don't know the exact cause, they seem to be on the fringe of the v90 availability area. 3Com described it to me as a "bug" in the Ascend server firmware. All I know is that it has cost me customers in the past and continues to be an issue that I have no answer for when it comes up. I have gone to great lengths to explain to them what I have learned many months ago from 3Com but I don't think they believe me. Would you believe that 3Com/USR modems connect better to the competition than their own racks? Thankfully, it is a somewhat rare occurance and I only have to explain once or twice a month. I really don't know for sure to what extent it really occurs. I do know that I have lost customers over this and it continues to be an issue. I am getting tired of no news to update the situation though. I'm also afraid that it will harm our reputation if this continues as is. Word of mouth is still our best marketing and this will grow in significance with time.
At 11:15 AM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
Ed writes...
. . . Let him know you are having the 3com V90 problems and you want it resolved. I think they believe it is a rare scenerio not effecting very many people. We told them it was more widespread than they knew... and that if 3com client modems connect to Ascends they should darn well connect to a 3com TC. No ifs ands or buts.
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
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Thanks,
Greg Coffey, Visionary Communications V 307-234-5443 F 307-234-5446 ===================================================================== 100 N. Center St., Casper, WY 82601 WWW.VCN.COM
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----------------------------------------------------- Brian Feeny (BF304) signal@shreve.net 318-222-2638 x 109 http://www.shreve.net/~signal Network Administrator ShreveNet Inc. (ASN 11881)
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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.
Customers don't care! I have fixed many a problem by turning off v.90 in off brand modems. But try and explain your reasoning to joe blow and his new computer. Paul Farber Farber Technology farber@admin.f-tech.net Ph 570-628-5303 Fax 570-628-5545
If modem X connects at an unreliable V.90 speed to an Ascend, and connects at a reliable v.34 rate to a 3com, that's a problem?
-- Aaron Nabil
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I hear a lot of complaints about 3COM on this list. Is the general idea that 3COM should not be used? I used PM3s, with a lot of connection issues, but little management headaches. I have considered CISCO (even tried one out), but have heard the nightmare stories about connection issues. Is there a feeling that the Ascend is better? Hmmm. Why don't I dump my 3COM and go back to LT. I got excellent support there. I have never even been able to get 3COM to give me the TC Software, and I paid for the support contract. They tell me I have to prove I have a support contract every time I call. Do they just SUCK? That is the feeling I am getting from this list. Is that what you guys mean to say: "Run from 3COM, they SUCK!" Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Ed Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 4:46 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Again yes there is a problem with V90 on 3com. Ascend units will do V90 with a client 3com modem in cases where 3com TC won't... this is DEFINITELY a problem that has been addressed but not resolved. You would think this would concern 3com more than it does... just like all the complaints about support on this list. Oh well when everyone is switching to a different platform they may care but it will be too late. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Allen Marsalis <am@shreve.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 6:11 PM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Same here. That's pretty much exactly how we feel about it. However we occationally find a user with a good sportster/3com modem who can't get v.90 on our TCS but can on our TNT (eval) and more importantly, can with our competitors. Users won't stay with 28.8 when they can get 48k elsewhere.. If there were no modem code issues, I'd be more than happy to send the eval back. Instead, I'll probably get an invoice... Well back when we started, we bought a superstack and it worked of course but when I found out it was half-duplex on all 10T ports, we sent it back and opted for a catalyst.. But nowadays I'm sure things are different. We outgrew the catalyst and now have a fastiron and we love it.. I realize that switches don't call for much support, but we did have some issues with the catalyst. Ciscos support as amazing and they even called back again just to make sure we were happy. 3com on the otherhand wanted to charge us for support on a 1 day old switch! I just wanted to double check to see that their was no fdx on the ports before sending it back. They could have cared less whether I returned it or not.. So I did! Allen - 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. - 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. - 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.
COMPLETELY UNTRUE! If you are an ISP in Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, or California, I encourage you to gut whatever terminal servers you are using and go with 3Com. In fact I'll sell you one! If you don't want my Hiper DSP chassis, buy a quad modem setup. Don't listen to anything posted on this list - it's a pack of lies. With 3Com, you will be a class all to yourself, you will set a new standard. With 3Com, your staff's morale will change for the better. My staff now gladly helps non-3Com chassis users. Friday, we had 4 calls waiting - one was a lady who trying to do a floppy installation of Netscape 4.7 on her 4 meg RAM 286 with Windows 3.1, the other callers where customers having trouble getting on one of our 3Com chassis. I never witnessed such devotion in my staff to help one person. I mean all of my staff pleaded if they could help this lady. Before we used 3Com, they wouldn't touch this lady's problem with a ten foot pole. Thanks 3Com! Your local government will thank you for creating more jobs because of the tech staff you'll need to handle the growing customer "feedback". I kid you not! Your customers will show their gratitude that you went with 3Com! You will learn the meaning of customer interaction, and I guarantee you will get to know every customer not only by their first name, but their modem type. Also, tell you high end customers buy only 3Com "Office Connect" ISDN modems/routers. I assure you that your customer's employees will be happy to know that their jobs will be secure and they'll be in high demand. They'll thank you for the sudden boost in OT pay too. Other 3Com advantages: * You'll know your service contract number better than your birthday, phone number, or wedding anniversary. * It's the only support vendor that you have programmed in your speed dial. * You'll master the music on hold options. * 3Com is the only company that uses revisions number on new software releases that are lower than the previous software release. * Tamper proof. Because of so many revisions within revisions, a hacker would have no frickin idea what revision are using - neither will your admins. Trust me! Go with 3Com. Let 3Com take you "down" to a new dimension! Richard Lorbieski PS. This message is not a flame against any 3Com employee. Most of them are extremely talented and qualified people. I especially appreciate the 3Com employees that contribute their time on this list. It's 3Com upper management, bureaucracy, and policies that I have a problem with. "Jason A. Nunnelley" wrote:
I hear a lot of complaints about 3COM on this list. Is the general idea that 3COM should not be used? I used PM3s, with a lot of connection issues, but little management headaches. I have considered CISCO (even tried one out), but have heard the nightmare stories about connection issues. Is there a feeling that the Ascend is better? Hmmm. Why don't I dump my 3COM and go back to LT. I got excellent support there. I have never even been able to get 3COM to give me the TC Software, and I paid for the support contract. They tell me I have to prove I have a support contract every time I call. Do they just SUCK? That is the feeling I am getting from this list. Is that what you guys mean to say: "Run from 3COM, they SUCK!"
Jason
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Ed Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 4:46 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting
Again yes there is a problem with V90 on 3com. Ascend units will do V90 with a client 3com modem in cases where 3com TC won't... this is DEFINITELY a problem that has been addressed but not resolved. You would think this would concern 3com more than it does... just like all the complaints about support on this list.
Oh well when everyone is switching to a different platform they may care but it will be too late.
Ed
----- Original Message ----- From: Allen Marsalis <am@shreve.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 6:11 PM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting
Same here. That's pretty much exactly how we feel about it. However we occationally find a user with a good sportster/3com modem who can't get v.90 on our TCS but can on our TNT (eval) and more importantly, can with our competitors. Users won't stay with 28.8 when they can get 48k elsewhere.. If there were no modem code issues, I'd be more than happy to send the eval back. Instead, I'll probably get an invoice...
Well back when we started, we bought a superstack and it worked of course but when I found out it was half-duplex on all 10T ports, we sent it back and opted for a catalyst.. But nowadays I'm sure things are different. We outgrew the catalyst and now have a fastiron and we love it..
I realize that switches don't call for much support, but we did have some issues with the catalyst. Ciscos support as amazing and they even called back again just to make sure we were happy. 3com on the otherhand wanted to charge us for support on a 1 day old switch! I just wanted to double check to see that their was no fdx on the ports before sending it back. They could have cared less whether I returned it or not.. So I did!
Allen
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I have only been a 3COM customer for a few months, and I do not regret my decision, YET. Many on this list have been jilted by 3COM for a long time. It will take a lot to win these folks back. I was previously using a Microcom modem platform, and my end user connect issues have virtually been eliminated. But I am small, and new to 3COM, so my voice has little weight on this subject. And I cannot compare 3COM to Ascend or LT NAS's. I was thinking -- while the DSP and Hiper code controls almost all of the cards' functions, is it possible that the physical hardware on the DSP cards is playing a role in these problems? My cards are all less than 3 months old, and I've NEVER experienced the modem-pair hanging problem that plagues many here. I also have very, very few connect issues. Could it be the HARDWARE revisions on the DSP cards are also effecting performance and stability? Just a thought... -Scot -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jason A. Nunnelley Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 4:26 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting I hear a lot of complaints about 3COM on this list. Is the general idea that 3COM should not be used? I used PM3s, with a lot of connection issues, but little management headaches. I have considered CISCO (even tried one out), but have heard the nightmare stories about connection issues. Is there a feeling that the Ascend is better? Hmmm. Why don't I dump my 3COM and go back to LT. I got excellent support there. I have never even been able to get 3COM to give me the TC Software, and I paid for the support contract. They tell me I have to prove I have a support contract every time I call. Do they just SUCK? That is the feeling I am getting from this list. Is that what you guys mean to say: "Run from 3COM, they SUCK!" Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Ed Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 4:46 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Again yes there is a problem with V90 on 3com. Ascend units will do V90 with a client 3com modem in cases where 3com TC won't... this is DEFINITELY a problem that has been addressed but not resolved. You would think this would concern 3com more than it does... just like all the complaints about support on this list. Oh well when everyone is switching to a different platform they may care but it will be too late. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Allen Marsalis <am@shreve.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 6:11 PM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Same here. That's pretty much exactly how we feel about it. However we occationally find a user with a good sportster/3com modem who can't get v.90 on our TCS but can on our TNT (eval) and more importantly, can with our competitors. Users won't stay with 28.8 when they can get 48k elsewhere.. If there were no modem code issues, I'd be more than happy to send the eval back. Instead, I'll probably get an invoice... Well back when we started, we bought a superstack and it worked of course but when I found out it was half-duplex on all 10T ports, we sent it back and opted for a catalyst.. But nowadays I'm sure things are different. We outgrew the catalyst and now have a fastiron and we love it.. I realize that switches don't call for much support, but we did have some issues with the catalyst. Ciscos support as amazing and they even called back again just to make sure we were happy. 3com on the otherhand wanted to charge us for support on a 1 day old switch! I just wanted to double check to see that their was no fdx on the ports before sending it back. They could have cared less whether I returned it or not.. So I did! Allen - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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.
It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible. There would be an outcry for replacement cards, especially those who are under support and guaranteed contracts. You do have a good point. Mine have never had the hanging issues at all. However, I have seen the lost connection issues. I am personally concerned about that. I also do not upgrade my code until I see how it effects everyone else first. My rule is: I can keep them with OK services. I can't with experimenting with services that don't work at all. BTW, my actual connected users get OK service from the 3COM chasis. However, I do know about the support failures. Coming from LT, with ausome support, I am missing them already. Fortunite for me, LT owns my support contract through my retailer. Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Scot Desort Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 5:14 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting I have only been a 3COM customer for a few months, and I do not regret my decision, YET. Many on this list have been jilted by 3COM for a long time. It will take a lot to win these folks back. I was previously using a Microcom modem platform, and my end user connect issues have virtually been eliminated. But I am small, and new to 3COM, so my voice has little weight on this subject. And I cannot compare 3COM to Ascend or LT NAS's. I was thinking -- while the DSP and Hiper code controls almost all of the cards' functions, is it possible that the physical hardware on the DSP cards is playing a role in these problems? My cards are all less than 3 months old, and I've NEVER experienced the modem-pair hanging problem that plagues many here. I also have very, very few connect issues. Could it be the HARDWARE revisions on the DSP cards are also effecting performance and stability? Just a thought... -Scot -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jason A. Nunnelley Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 4:26 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting I hear a lot of complaints about 3COM on this list. Is the general idea that 3COM should not be used? I used PM3s, with a lot of connection issues, but little management headaches. I have considered CISCO (even tried one out), but have heard the nightmare stories about connection issues. Is there a feeling that the Ascend is better? Hmmm. Why don't I dump my 3COM and go back to LT. I got excellent support there. I have never even been able to get 3COM to give me the TC Software, and I paid for the support contract. They tell me I have to prove I have a support contract every time I call. Do they just SUCK? That is the feeling I am getting from this list. Is that what you guys mean to say: "Run from 3COM, they SUCK!" Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Ed Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 4:46 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Again yes there is a problem with V90 on 3com. Ascend units will do V90 with a client 3com modem in cases where 3com TC won't... this is DEFINITELY a problem that has been addressed but not resolved. You would think this would concern 3com more than it does... just like all the complaints about support on this list. Oh well when everyone is switching to a different platform they may care but it will be too late. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Allen Marsalis <am@shreve.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, October 16, 1999 6:11 PM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Same here. That's pretty much exactly how we feel about it. However we occationally find a user with a good sportster/3com modem who can't get v.90 on our TCS but can on our TNT (eval) and more importantly, can with our competitors. Users won't stay with 28.8 when they can get 48k elsewhere.. If there were no modem code issues, I'd be more than happy to send the eval back. Instead, I'll probably get an invoice... Well back when we started, we bought a superstack and it worked of course but when I found out it was half-duplex on all 10T ports, we sent it back and opted for a catalyst.. But nowadays I'm sure things are different. We outgrew the catalyst and now have a fastiron and we love it.. I realize that switches don't call for much support, but we did have some issues with the catalyst. Ciscos support as amazing and they even called back again just to make sure we were happy. 3com on the otherhand wanted to charge us for support on a 1 day old switch! I just wanted to double check to see that their was no fdx on the ports before sending it back. They could have cared less whether I returned it or not.. So I did! Allen - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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.
Again, since I am small, and new to TC, I can't give any statistically relevant data regarding connect issues, but so far, the only significant issues I have with client modems are (in order) 1. HCF 2. Old Lucent Winmodems (pre 5.x code) Sportster & WinSportster work like champs. I go out of my way to ask Sportster customers what their connect rates are, and providing they are on the latest code, v90 is established almost 100% of the time and at rates of 45K or better. But this is only representative of those who I've come across in our database where we know exactly what modem they are using, and I've taken the time to call them. But they are geographically dispersed throughout our service area. This may not hold true over time as we expand, but for now, I cannot say that we have a connect rate issue that is troubling me in any way. Something deep down inside tells me it's more of a hardware revision problem, than DSP code revision problems. If you read many of the posts from users who are having these problems widepsread, most of them have been with USR/3COM for many years. I venture to guess that many of their cards have been in service for some time now, thus the older hardware revisions. I may be completely off here, but even if I'm not, there very well be no way for 3COM to financially or legally solve the problem, other than sitting back and waiting for all of the older cards to be phased out of service to be replaced with the new cards. By then, it may be too late. -Scot -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jason A. Nunnelley Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 10:26 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible. There would be an outcry for replacement cards, especially those who are under support and guaranteed contracts. You do have a good point. Mine have never had the hanging issues at all. However, I have seen the lost connection issues. I am personally concerned about that. I also do not upgrade my code until I see how it effects everyone else first. My rule is: I can keep them with OK services. I can't with experimenting with services that don't work at all. BTW, my actual connected users get OK service from the 3COM chasis. However, I do know about the support failures. Coming from LT, with ausome support, I am missing them already. Fortunite for me, LT owns my support contract through my retailer. Jason - 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.
I too have had the same experience with the 3COM. I am disatisfied with the company's attitude toward customers. It seems to have an "avoid them or bill them" philosophy. I did not buy the 3COM for the support, although it is important. LT has the best support because they have their goals set right. They want everyone using a LT Product to get good support. They are not concerned about contracts, etc. You would think the price we pay for support would give us incredible support. I have yet to even get the latest codes directly from 3COM for the hassle I have to go through. I had an LT Support guy help me with mine. But, the 3COM seems to be a better box than the PM3. And, I have not personally tried the ASCEND products for Access Servers, only routers. I know that pre-LT involvement, ASCEND was harder to get support from than 3COM. So, I was never excited about looking that way. Maybe I should try them out for a month. Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Scot Desort Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 6:21 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Again, since I am small, and new to TC, I can't give any statistically relevant data regarding connect issues, but so far, the only significant issues I have with client modems are (in order) 1. HCF 2. Old Lucent Winmodems (pre 5.x code) Sportster & WinSportster work like champs. I go out of my way to ask Sportster customers what their connect rates are, and providing they are on the latest code, v90 is established almost 100% of the time and at rates of 45K or better. But this is only representative of those who I've come across in our database where we know exactly what modem they are using, and I've taken the time to call them. But they are geographically dispersed throughout our service area. This may not hold true over time as we expand, but for now, I cannot say that we have a connect rate issue that is troubling me in any way. Something deep down inside tells me it's more of a hardware revision problem, than DSP code revision problems. If you read many of the posts from users who are having these problems widepsread, most of them have been with USR/3COM for many years. I venture to guess that many of their cards have been in service for some time now, thus the older hardware revisions. I may be completely off here, but even if I'm not, there very well be no way for 3COM to financially or legally solve the problem, other than sitting back and waiting for all of the older cards to be phased out of service to be replaced with the new cards. By then, it may be too late. -Scot -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jason A. Nunnelley Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 10:26 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible. There would be an outcry for replacement cards, especially those who are under support and guaranteed contracts. You do have a good point. Mine have never had the hanging issues at all. However, I have seen the lost connection issues. I am personally concerned about that. I also do not upgrade my code until I see how it effects everyone else first. My rule is: I can keep them with OK services. I can't with experimenting with services that don't work at all. BTW, my actual connected users get OK service from the 3COM chasis. However, I do know about the support failures. Coming from LT, with ausome support, I am missing them already. Fortunite for me, LT owns my support contract through my retailer. Jason - 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. - 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.
On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
I too have had the same experience with the 3COM. I am disatisfied with the company's attitude toward customers. It seems to have an "avoid them or bill them" philosophy. I did not buy the 3COM for the support, although it is important. LT has the best support because they have their goals set right. They want everyone using a LT Product to get good support. They are not concerned about contracts, etc. You would think the price we pay for support would give us incredible support. I have yet to even get the latest codes directly from 3COM for the hassle I have to go through. I had an LT Support guy help me with mine. But, the 3COM seems to be a better box than the PM3. And, I have not personally tried the ASCEND products for Access Servers, only routers. I know that pre-LT involvement, ASCEND was harder to get support from than 3COM. So, I was never excited about looking that way. Maybe I should try them out for a month.
Okay, time for someone to come up to bat for 3Com. There's one thing I can say that I'm very happy about with 3Com - even though the NetServer has been disco'd, they still support it (albeit minimally), and getting to talk to a good support person is sometimes difficult, I have never had a problem getting support for product which we've had problems with from 3Com. I've also never seen 3Com completely discontinue a platform without already having something existing in place to replace it. Granted, the HARC was not a 100% feature replacement for the NetServer card, but at least it still worked with *all* the old equipment. Some of the software issues were not quite complete when the NetServer manufacturing was discontinued, but the OS was fairly stable and worked enough that we are still using them in some of our smallest digital locations. Let's face it, USR (now 3Com) did a good job getting themselves into the chassis market by borrowing the wheel from someone else while they invented their own better version. Lucent has all but shot themselves in the foot by killing PM2's and PM3's completely. Based on that fact, we have made a firm decision that we will *not* be buying any Lucent equipment so we don't get shot in the foot by Lucent's knee jerk decisions. In business, growth or death is inevitable. If you're not doing one, you're doing the other. There is no such thing as stagnant business. 3Com has chosen to grow. The problem with growing is that sometimes it means getting rid of excess weight. The NetServer was never intended to be a long-term solution for TC platforms. I don't know much about Lucent PM's except that due to their own handling of their own product, we have made a decision not to buy Lucent because they are building product which is not forward compatible. Kevin Benton SOTA Technologies 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.
Kevin, I don't think we disagree on anything here. This is why I still have 3COM. It would be nice if they would borrow a little Livingston mentality toward support. Hmmm, maybe support isn't valuable when the product works. The problem is, the 3COM stuff is MORE complicated than Livingston stuff - not simpler. I just like the idea that a company wants to give upgrades and support information to anyone using the product. That makes sense. Raise the proce an extra grand or 2, and make it simpler to use for my understanding of the systems. And, don't give me the third degree each and every time I call for help. I have received much more help from Solunet than 3COM - yet I paid 3COM for support. Does that make sense? Other than that - I like my 3COM box fine. Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Kevin Benton Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 11:50 AM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
I too have had the same experience with the 3COM. I am disatisfied with the company's attitude toward customers. It seems to have an "avoid them or bill them" philosophy. I did not buy the 3COM for the support, although it is important. LT has the best support because they have their goals set right. They want everyone using a LT Product to get good support. They are not concerned about contracts, etc. You would think the price we pay for support would give us incredible support. I have yet to even get the latest codes directly from 3COM for the hassle I have to go through. I had an LT Support guy help me with mine. But, the 3COM seems to be a better box than the PM3. And, I have not personally tried the ASCEND products for Access Servers, only routers. I know that pre-LT involvement, ASCEND was harder to get support from than 3COM. So, I was never excited about looking that way. Maybe I should try them out for a month.
Okay, time for someone to come up to bat for 3Com. There's one thing I can say that I'm very happy about with 3Com - even though the NetServer has been disco'd, they still support it (albeit minimally), and getting to talk to a good support person is sometimes difficult, I have never had a problem getting support for product which we've had problems with from 3Com. I've also never seen 3Com completely discontinue a platform without already having something existing in place to replace it. Granted, the HARC was not a 100% feature replacement for the NetServer card, but at least it still worked with *all* the old equipment. Some of the software issues were not quite complete when the NetServer manufacturing was discontinued, but the OS was fairly stable and worked enough that we are still using them in some of our smallest digital locations. Let's face it, USR (now 3Com) did a good job getting themselves into the chassis market by borrowing the wheel from someone else while they invented their own better version. Lucent has all but shot themselves in the foot by killing PM2's and PM3's completely. Based on that fact, we have made a firm decision that we will *not* be buying any Lucent equipment so we don't get shot in the foot by Lucent's knee jerk decisions. In business, growth or death is inevitable. If you're not doing one, you're doing the other. There is no such thing as stagnant business. 3Com has chosen to grow. The problem with growing is that sometimes it means getting rid of excess weight. The NetServer was never intended to be a long-term solution for TC platforms. I don't know much about Lucent PM's except that due to their own handling of their own product, we have made a decision not to buy Lucent because they are building product which is not forward compatible. Kevin Benton SOTA Technologies 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. - 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.
I don't think 3com needs anyone to "BAT" for them... (from what I've seen they all get enough batting practice on all the trade in equipment) Sorry but 3com has MANY issues and they need resolved, not complimented on what they do OK on. I don't know about you but we purchased our equipment and therefore have the right to b**** when things are not working properly or they have issues. Also if we don't talk about these issues why would 3com go above and beyond to fix them?... not to mention vent our frustrations to others that are experiencing the same and possibly run across a resolution. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Kevin Benton <s1kevin@tims.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 2:50 PM Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
I too have had the same experience with the 3COM. I am disatisfied with the company's attitude toward customers. It seems to have an "avoid them or bill them" philosophy. I did not buy the 3COM for the support, although it is important. LT has the best support because they have their goals set right. They want everyone using a LT Product to get good support. They are not concerned about contracts, etc. You would think the price we pay for support would give us incredible support. I have yet to even get the latest codes directly from 3COM for the hassle I have to go through. I had an LT Support guy help me with mine. But, the 3COM seems to be a better box than the PM3. And, I have not personally tried the ASCEND products for Access Servers, only routers. I know that pre-LT involvement, ASCEND was harder to get support from than 3COM. So, I was never excited about looking that way. Maybe I should try them out for a month.
Okay, time for someone to come up to bat for 3Com. There's one thing I can say that I'm very happy about with 3Com - even though the NetServer has been disco'd, they still support it (albeit minimally), and getting to talk to a good support person is sometimes difficult, I have never had a problem getting support for product which we've had problems with from 3Com. I've also never seen 3Com completely discontinue a platform without already having something existing in place to replace it. Granted, the HARC was not a 100% feature replacement for the NetServer card, but at least it still worked with *all* the old equipment. Some of the software issues were not quite complete when the NetServer manufacturing was discontinued, but the OS was fairly stable and worked enough that we are still using them in some of our smallest digital locations. Let's face it, USR (now 3Com) did a good job getting themselves into the chassis market by borrowing the wheel from someone else while they invented their own better version. Lucent has all but shot themselves in the foot by killing PM2's and PM3's completely. Based on that fact, we have made a firm decision that we will *not* be buying any Lucent equipment so we don't get shot in the foot by Lucent's knee jerk decisions. In business, growth or death is inevitable. If you're not doing one, you're doing the other. There is no such thing as stagnant business. 3Com has chosen to grow. The problem with growing is that sometimes it means getting rid of excess weight. The NetServer was never intended to be a long-term solution for TC platforms. I don't know much about Lucent PM's except that due to their own handling of their own product, we have made a decision not to buy Lucent because they are building product which is not forward compatible. Kevin Benton SOTA Technologies 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. - 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.
At 07:26 PM 10/17/99 -0700, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible.
Far cheaper than loosing a bunch of customers, I'd bet. Actually, were they to announce that early DSPs were bad and ship out free replacements, they'd likely sell enough product to new customers to cover the replacement costs. A move like that could lock in tons of business from companies that like 3Com equipment, but are hesitant to buy because of their support reputation. -- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net - 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.
Thus spake K Mitchell
At 07:26 PM 10/17/99 -0700, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible.
Far cheaper than loosing a bunch of customers, I'd bet. Actually, were they to announce that early DSPs were bad and ship out free replacements, they'd likely sell enough product to new customers to cover the replacement costs. A move like that could lock in tons of business from companies that like 3Com equipment, but are hesitant to buy because of their support reputation.
Agreed...3Com needs to do some *serious* work on their support reputation. While its never been good, and *some* issues with support have been worked on (hold times for tech support are down, for sure) but the quality of tech support is still pitiful, and the *overall* support issues (and this isn't just restricted to tech support...its having to do with 3Com's overall customer service attitudes) still really sucks swamp water. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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.
The ONLY reason Hold times are down is because everyone has stopped calling. They get the 3rd degree about a support contract everytime and then even if they have a contract they ask if it's the right chassis for the contract and drill them if they are sure they don't have 20 chassis' and a contract for 5. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Mcadams <jeffm@iglou.com> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 9:09 AM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Thus spake K Mitchell
At 07:26 PM 10/17/99 -0700, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible.
Far cheaper than loosing a bunch of customers, I'd bet. Actually, were they to announce that early DSPs were bad and ship out free replacements, they'd likely sell enough product to new customers to cover the replacement costs. A move like that could lock in tons of business from companies that like 3Com equipment, but are hesitant to buy because of their support reputation.
Agreed...3Com needs to do some *serious* work on their support reputation. While its never been good, and *some* issues with support have been worked on (hold times for tech support are down, for sure) but the quality of tech support is still pitiful, and the *overall* support issues (and this isn't just restricted to tech support...its having to do with 3Com's overall customer service attitudes) still really sucks swamp water. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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. - 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.
I have given up on 3COM support myself. I am scared to call for the hassle I will go through proving I have the right to call them. I agree. This is a company who's goal#1 is to NOT support you. If you get through the DNS tests to prove you deserve help, then the techs have done OK with my needs. I still ahven't figured out how to get software from the company directly without wasting a day proving who I am and what my contract says. -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Ed Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 6:41 AM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting The ONLY reason Hold times are down is because everyone has stopped calling. They get the 3rd degree about a support contract everytime and then even if they have a contract they ask if it's the right chassis for the contract and drill them if they are sure they don't have 20 chassis' and a contract for 5. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Mcadams <jeffm@iglou.com> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 9:09 AM Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Thus spake K Mitchell
At 07:26 PM 10/17/99 -0700, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible.
Far cheaper than loosing a bunch of customers, I'd bet. Actually, were they to announce that early DSPs were bad and ship out free replacements, they'd likely sell enough product to new customers to cover the replacement costs. A move like that could lock in tons of business from companies that like 3Com equipment, but are hesitant to buy because of their support reputation.
Agreed...3Com needs to do some *serious* work on their support reputation. While its never been good, and *some* issues with support have been worked on (hold times for tech support are down, for sure) but the quality of tech support is still pitiful, and the *overall* support issues (and this isn't just restricted to tech support...its having to do with 3Com's overall customer service attitudes) still really sucks swamp water. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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. - 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. - 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.
Thus spake Ed
The ONLY reason Hold times are down is because everyone has stopped calling. They get the 3rd degree about a support contract everytime and then even if they have a contract they ask if it's the right chassis for the contract and drill them if they are sure they don't have 20 chassis' and a contract for 5.
Yeah, that and they pulled in a bunch of people with virtually no training or experience for first level tech support, I think so they could at least have someone answer the phone. If they're going to take this route...do what Livingston used to do...have someone (more likely multiple someone's), *not* a tech support person, answer the phone, take some information about the nature of the problem and the urgency, and then do tech support on a callback basis. Livingston did this for quite some time, and while non-urgent callbacks could take up to 2 weeks to occur, urgent problems were handled promptly, efficiently, and by an engineer that was well versed in the equipment. I would certainly not be averse to such a model of tech support. While I would *prefer* to have prompt, efficient, quality handling of *all* tech support inquiries, I have to acknowledge that the realities of the technical job market could preclude that possibility. Regardless...I agree with you, Ed, here, in that the constant abuse that customers receive concerning their support contracts is a significant factor as well. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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.
From a Person who actually relied on LT, due to weaker skills (I have to say 3COM imrpoves your problems solving skills - again they have good stuff, just tough to get support) I really appreciated LT support. I much prefered it the way they handled things. But, again they did not discourage people from calling in the first place. They support all the equipment they sell - period. I am thinking about selling LT equipment, I am sounding like a salesman already.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jeff Mcadams Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 7:29 AM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Thus spake Ed
The ONLY reason Hold times are down is because everyone has stopped calling. They get the 3rd degree about a support contract everytime and then even if they have a contract they ask if it's the right chassis for the contract and drill them if they are sure they don't have 20 chassis' and a contract for 5.
Yeah, that and they pulled in a bunch of people with virtually no training or experience for first level tech support, I think so they could at least have someone answer the phone. If they're going to take this route...do what Livingston used to do...have someone (more likely multiple someone's), *not* a tech support person, answer the phone, take some information about the nature of the problem and the urgency, and then do tech support on a callback basis. Livingston did this for quite some time, and while non-urgent callbacks could take up to 2 weeks to occur, urgent problems were handled promptly, efficiently, and by an engineer that was well versed in the equipment. I would certainly not be averse to such a model of tech support. While I would *prefer* to have prompt, efficient, quality handling of *all* tech support inquiries, I have to acknowledge that the realities of the technical job market could preclude that possibility. Regardless...I agree with you, Ed, here, in that the constant abuse that customers receive concerning their support contracts is a significant factor as well. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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. - 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.
You guys don't know big business if you think a company would consider giving away cards cause the one's they sold went bad. Don't know about the side-gas tanks in the small trucks (un-named car company that preferred paying off litigations one by one than admit and fix) or the typical medical industry reaction when they catch a bad procedure or drug. 3COM faces far too many problems, as any big business admitting to any wrong doing or mistake. Let the customers deal with it, solve the problem in new releases of the product, and wait to let it go away. That's how big business handles stuff like that. Seriously! Even if they were a nice company, they aren't small business minded like an ISP. Screw the customers we have - they are stuck. Get the new fish! It would cost me a fortune to switch to another brand (although I keep saying the hardware is pretty good by my experience). I can't really do it now. I miss my PM3, but I have to keep my 3COM and think (maybe influenced by reality not allowing any real choice) that it is a better choice despite support problems. I just do not call support when I have problems. I ask you guys, or people like you. My contract was a waste of money. I do not think I'll make that mistake again. Of course, if revision releases rely on it - he he, I guess once again I have no choice. After all, this is not a bad box to own. And, I do not have any hardware issues with hanging modems, never seen it. -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jeff Mcadams Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 6:09 AM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Thus spake K Mitchell
At 07:26 PM 10/17/99 -0700, Jason A. Nunnelley wrote:
It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible.
Far cheaper than loosing a bunch of customers, I'd bet. Actually, were they to announce that early DSPs were bad and ship out free replacements, they'd likely sell enough product to new customers to cover the replacement costs. A move like that could lock in tons of business from companies that like 3Com equipment, but are hesitant to buy because of their support reputation.
Agreed...3Com needs to do some *serious* work on their support reputation. While its never been good, and *some* issues with support have been worked on (hold times for tech support are down, for sure) but the quality of tech support is still pitiful, and the *overall* support issues (and this isn't just restricted to tech support...its having to do with 3Com's overall customer service attitudes) still really sucks swamp water. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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. - 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.
Thus spake Jason A. Nunnelley
My contract was a waste of money. I do not think I'll make that mistake again. Of course, if revision releases rely on it - he he, I guess once again I have no choice.
Well...as was discussed before...there are other ways around getting the releases...and they're becoming more and more common. -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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.
Thus spake Jason A. Nunnelley
It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible. There would be an outcry for replacement cards, especially those who are under support and guaranteed contracts.
In MegaZone's absence, I'll point out that Livingston did exactly this...actually...they went one step farther. Livingston had been shipping modems saying they would be upgradeable to v.90 when v.90 was designed. They weren't. Livingston replaced any and all of the old modem cards free of charge with the new ones that were capable of v.90. 3Com doesn't even, apparently, have the willingness (almost said "guts") to replace cards when the *current* functionality is broken. This is, at least, borderline illegal. As another example of this, harken back to ye ol' days of NETServers and broken MPIP (many of you will remember all of this) and 3Com, to this day, refuses to make this situation right. Again...I truly believe its beaurocracy getting in the way here. The people that are in the position to make the decision to "do the right thing," are so *totally* insulated from the customers by layer upon layer of beaurocracy, that they don't even *realize* how their decisions for 3Com are royally screwing over their customer base...and may even be illegal! -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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.
I must agree once again: I miss working with Livingston. They undersand and have in their business plan - good tech support and upgrades. They are most concerned with supporting and making sure that their product works. Whereas I think the #1 goal of 3COM is to avoid these things at all costs. Then again, how is their stock doing? That's really all that matters. -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jeff Mcadams Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 6:07 AM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Thus spake Jason A. Nunnelley
It would seem that admitting this (on 3COM's part) would be financially impossible. There would be an outcry for replacement cards, especially those who are under support and guaranteed contracts.
In MegaZone's absence, I'll point out that Livingston did exactly this...actually...they went one step farther. Livingston had been shipping modems saying they would be upgradeable to v.90 when v.90 was designed. They weren't. Livingston replaced any and all of the old modem cards free of charge with the new ones that were capable of v.90. 3Com doesn't even, apparently, have the willingness (almost said "guts") to replace cards when the *current* functionality is broken. This is, at least, borderline illegal. As another example of this, harken back to ye ol' days of NETServers and broken MPIP (many of you will remember all of this) and 3Com, to this day, refuses to make this situation right. Again...I truly believe its beaurocracy getting in the way here. The people that are in the position to make the decision to "do the right thing," are so *totally* insulated from the customers by layer upon layer of beaurocracy, that they don't even *realize* how their decisions for 3Com are royally screwing over their customer base...and may even be illegal! -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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. - 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.
Thus spake Jason A. Nunnelley
Then again, how is their stock doing? That's really all that matters.
Ooh...good question...and one I bet 3Com really doesn't want asked... After a quick perusal of 3Com's stock history on yahoo (symbol: COMS). Their current stock price is approximately 30. Going back on their 5 year chart, COMS stock first hit the 30 mark (split adjusted) around April or May of 1995! Given that I had to go to the 5 year chart to be able to see back that far, the chart was course grained enough that I'd guesstimate the margin for error being a couple of months either way. This all means...if you had purchased 3Com stock in early to mid 1995, you would be breaking even at this point (3Com doesn't issue dividends, so you can't even count on dividends for gains here) -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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.
Uh Oh! So, is this a company that is not concerned with growth or stock value? What motivates the management here then? Is it squeezing the customer for every penny they can get and keeping costs low as they can for management paychecks? Ouhhhhhhh, that's a coctail for failure. Makes you wonder doesn't it? -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jeff Mcadams Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 8:07 AM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Thus spake Jason A. Nunnelley
Then again, how is their stock doing? That's really all that matters.
Ooh...good question...and one I bet 3Com really doesn't want asked... After a quick perusal of 3Com's stock history on yahoo (symbol: COMS). Their current stock price is approximately 30. Going back on their 5 year chart, COMS stock first hit the 30 mark (split adjusted) around April or May of 1995! Given that I had to go to the 5 year chart to be able to see back that far, the chart was course grained enough that I'd guesstimate the margin for error being a couple of months either way. This all means...if you had purchased 3Com stock in early to mid 1995, you would be breaking even at this point (3Com doesn't issue dividends, so you can't even count on dividends for gains here) -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456 - 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. - 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.
Actually you would be losing money. Not only have you lost the use of the money for 4+ years (time value), the actual value of the money has gone down (inflation). At 01:06 PM 10/18/1999 -0700, you wrote:
This all means...if you had purchased 3Com stock in early to mid 1995, you would be breaking even at this point (3Com doesn't issue dividends, so you can't even count on dividends for gains here)
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Thus spake CyberPort Montana
Actually you would be losing money. Not only have you lost the use of the money for 4+ years (time value), the actual value of the money has gone down (inflation).
Well, yeah...true...I really didn't feel like digging out my Econ 101 and 102 though. :)
At 01:06 PM 10/18/1999 -0700, you wrote:
This all means...if you had purchased 3Com stock in early to mid 1995, you would be breaking even at this point (3Com doesn't issue dividends, so you can't even count on dividends for gains here) -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456
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Out comes the calculator... :) $5000 invested into 3com at it's lowest price point in 1995 (before the 2:1 split) would have bought you about 113 shares (44.375/share). You would be holding 226 shares today because there was one 2:1 split at the end of 1995. At today's market price of 27-11/16 your shares would be worth $6328. Assuming you bought the shares in January of 1995 that would leave you with a 5.07% return per year. That should be enough to cover inflation over that time period but only by a few percentage points. $5000 invested into Cisco at it's lowest price point in 1995 (before the 2:1 and 3:2 splits) would have bought you about 154 shares (32.50/share). You would be holding 1386 shares today because there have been two 2:1 splits and 2 3:2 splits since then. At today's market price of 65-7/8 your shares would be worth about $92,000. Assuming you bought the shares in January of 1995 that would leave you with a 84.38% return per year. I think my math is correct, but you get the picture in any case :) Mike McHenry Systems Administrator MinnNet Communications, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-usr-tc@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jeff Mcadams Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 1:37 PM To: usr-tc@lists.xmission.com Subject: Re: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting Thus spake CyberPort Montana
Actually you would be losing money. Not only have you lost the use of the money for 4+ years (time value), the actual value of the money has gone down (inflation).
Well, yeah...true...I really didn't feel like digging out my Econ 101 and 102 though. :)
At 01:06 PM 10/18/1999 -0700, you wrote:
This all means...if you had purchased 3Com stock in early to mid 1995, you would be breaking even at this point (3Com doesn't issue dividends, so you can't even count on dividends for gains here) -- Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm@iglou.com Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848 IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456
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I also suspect that the hanging modem issue is related to hardware. recently I have been watching this very closly. Every time a dsp hangs it is the same ones. SRO the dsps and the replacement ones do not exhibit the problem. I don't think it is revision related as I have had failures on both .49 and .53 Anyone else see this, or is it just a concidence? (My sample size is fairly small ~200 DSP with 5 that exhibited the modem hanging problem) Along these lines, what do people use to stress-test/burn in their chassis before they deploy them? -Luke
I was thinking -- while the DSP and Hiper code controls almost all of the cards' functions, is it possible that the physical hardware on the DSP cards is playing a role in these problems? My cards are all less than 3 months old, and I've NEVER experienced the modem-pair hanging problem that plagues many here. I also have very, very few connect issues. Could it be the HARDWARE revisions on the DSP cards are also effecting performance and stability?
Just a thought...
-Scot
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At 08:13 PM 10/17/99 -0400, Scot Desort wrote:
I was thinking -- while the DSP and Hiper code controls almost all of the cards' functions, is it possible that the physical hardware on the DSP cards is playing a role in these problems? My cards are all less than 3 months old, and I've NEVER experienced the modem-pair hanging problem that plagues many here. I also have very, very few connect issues. Could it be the HARDWARE revisions on the DSP cards are also effecting performance and stability?
That's a possibility I would have liked to investigate, but wasn't able to. The last card I got was a newer hardware version than my others, however it was DOA. The replacement I got was the same hardware version as my others. -- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net - 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.
I have not had the hanging modems with my cards yet, and I hope I don't. Since 3Com loves to screw with numbers, what is the newer DSP hardware version? 0.53.0 or 0.49.0? ----- Original Message ----- From: K Mitchell <mitch@keyconn.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 8:16 PM Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting
At 08:13 PM 10/17/99 -0400, Scot Desort wrote:
I was thinking -- while the DSP and Hiper code controls almost all of the cards' functions, is it possible that the physical hardware on the DSP cards is playing a role in these problems? My cards are all less than 3 months old, and I've NEVER experienced the modem-pair hanging problem that plagues many here. I also have very, very few connect issues. Could it be the HARDWARE revisions on the DSP cards are also effecting performance and stability?
That's a possibility I would have liked to investigate, but wasn't able to. The last card I got was a newer hardware version than my others, however it was DOA. The replacement I got was the same hardware version as my others.
-- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net
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At 08:40 PM 10/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
I have not had the hanging modems with my cards yet, and I hope I don't. Since 3Com loves to screw with numbers, what is the newer DSP hardware version? 0.53.0 or 0.49.0?
0.53.0 is newer, they don't appear to have the "number backwards if released on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or before noon Friday" fetish that the software guys do :) -- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net - 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.
We had the "hanging" modem problem last year. If a modem hung, the last caller was a MAC user. I , and I mean "I" worked around the problem by switching from PRI to CT1 and kept 2 of the PRIs for ISDN. I rarely get a hung modem. Anyway that was about 3 PM3's, 1 Bay 5399 with 3 blades ago, PM25 and a PM2e30 ago. I still have a 3Com in operation with 6 DSP cards, but we will replace it in January. Sheldon Koehler wrote:
I have not had the hanging modems with my cards yet, and I hope I don't. Since 3Com loves to screw with numbers, what is the newer DSP hardware version? 0.53.0 or 0.49.0?
----- Original Message ----- From: K Mitchell <mitch@keyconn.net> To: <usr-tc@lists.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, October 17, 1999 8:16 PM Subject: RE: (usr-tc) ISPCon/3Com Open Meeting
At 08:13 PM 10/17/99 -0400, Scot Desort wrote:
I was thinking -- while the DSP and Hiper code controls almost all of the cards' functions, is it possible that the physical hardware on the DSP cards is playing a role in these problems? My cards are all less than 3 months old, and I've NEVER experienced the modem-pair hanging problem that plagues many here. I also have very, very few connect issues. Could it be the HARDWARE revisions on the DSP cards are also effecting performance and stability?
That's a possibility I would have liked to investigate, but wasn't able to. The last card I got was a newer hardware version than my others, however it was DOA. The replacement I got was the same hardware version as my others.
-- Kirk Mitchell-General Manager mitch@keyconn.net Keystone Connect Unlock Your World Altoona, PA 814-941-5000 http://www.keyconn.net
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On Sun, 17 Oct 1999, Scot Desort wrote:
I was thinking -- while the DSP and Hiper code controls almost all of the cards' functions, is it possible that the physical hardware on the DSP cards is playing a role in these problems? My cards are all less than 3 months old, and I've NEVER experienced the modem-pair hanging problem that plagues many here. I also have very, very few connect issues. Could it be the HARDWARE revisions on the DSP cards are also effecting performance and stability?
Just a thought...
Who ever said secretaries don't ask good technical questions once in a while?!? Oh, come on, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while... :) j/k :) Good idea, Scot. Kevin - 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.
I would have to agree with Allen when it comes to the quality of support between 3com and ANYONE. We currently maintain maintenance agreements with many vendors (including cisco and lucent..aka ascend) and it is always refreshing to have to deal with both cisco and lucent of 3com engineers. Both cisco and lucent are very willing to upgrade any firmware revision that has KNOWN bugs. If 3com would start to comprehend this subject I think it would help with their stock....., I mean image... :> Allen Marsalis wrote:
At 09:15 PM 10/15/99 -0400, Lon R. Stockton, Jr. wrote:
On Fri, 15 Oct 1999, Allen Marsalis wrote:
I have no regrets.. x2 was a big deal in our area (we certainly helped) and being the first 56k provider in our area was a big win for us. USR made that happen.. I liked USR.. It's 3com that I feel ill about.
Agreed here too. Getting my TC rack was a big win for us, and having it still is. We were first with x2, first with v.90, and our v.90 *still* walks all over my competitions' PM-based dialup pools. And we're still the only provider in town doing ISDN, which is the best thing you can get here aside from a dedicated line. (and we're served by Sprint, who has some really good ISDN BRI pricing...only about $5 more than two regular phone lines and flat-rate to boot...not to mention that inbound PRIs are about 1/2 the cost of CT1's).
Same here. That's pretty much exactly how we feel about it. However we occationally find a user with a good sportster/3com modem who can't get v.90 on our TCS but can on our TNT (eval) and more importantly, can with our competitors. Users won't stay with 28.8 when they can get 48k elsewhere.. If there were no modem code issues, I'd be more than happy to send the eval back. Instead, I'll probably get an invoice...
Do we use 3com switches or routers? no we use cisco, foundry, etc..
I'm actually a fan of their switches. But one doesn't have the same problems...either a ethernet switch works or it doesn't. If it's
Well back when we started, we bought a superstack and it worked of course but when I found out it was half-duplex on all 10T ports, we sent it back and opted for a catalyst.. But nowadays I'm sure things are different. We outgrew the catalyst and now have a fastiron and we love it..
I realize that switches don't call for much support, but we did have some issues with the catalyst. Ciscos support as amazing and they even called back again just to make sure we were happy. 3com on the otherhand wanted to charge us for support on a 1 day old switch! I just wanted to double check to see that their was no fdx on the ports before sending it back. They could have cared less whether I returned it or not.. So I did!
Allen
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-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Rick Allan / rick@monmouth.com | Connect to a Backbone not a Wishbone Head of Network Engineering | Monmouth Internet Corporation 732-842-5366=====extension 102 | http://www.monmouth.com -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- - 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.
participants (22)
-
Aaron Nabil -
Allen Marsalis -
Brian -
CyberPort Montana -
das -
Dick -
Ed -
Eric Billeter -
farber＠admin.f-tech.net -
Greg Coffey -
Jason A. Nunnelley -
Jeff Mcadams -
K Mitchell -
Kevin Benton -
Lon R. Stockton, Jr. -
Luke Gain -
Mike McHenry -
Richard Lorbieski -
Rick -
Ronald Kushner -
Scot Desort -
Sheldon Koehler