Harry wrote:
Before you make an investment into any product check out the archives and see what kinds of problems people are having. here's my summary of smartbridges and the future as told with a crystal ball.
The problem is the manufacturer didn't really do their homework before selling everyone product. Profit first, get them out the door let the isp find the problem and we'll find a solution.
I think it's the same as shovel ware in the software market.
At one point in time isp's would only buy radio gear that was proven and reliable. If a manufacturer had as many problems as smartbridges does most isp's would demand heir money back and move on to a different solution. unfortunately it's been reported on this list that you can't get your money back.
Today's hype of wireless internet access has isp's jumping on the bandwagon for cheap affordable gear and caught up in the hype by certain manufacturers without any insight into the past.
They choose a product by the sales pitch of the reseller or the hype of an email list.
Then after they have made a substantial investment into one particular manufacturer's product, they find out it is buggy and like most don't want to admit they made a mistake. Whereas they keep working at it and working at until they loose the customers or even their reputation, I bet they loose their reputation first, customers second and their investment at the same time. Finally after they figure out that they will never make any money from their customers because they have spent so much time fiddling with their equipment that they throw in the towel and succumb to just going back to selling traditional isp services. or all of a sudden cable modems, dsl or even satellite start looking good to the customers who figure out that they will have to make extra room in their home for the isp wireless technician who keeps coming back over and over again to fix the problem and decide maybe they should try dsl by msn or roadrunner cable because their wireless isp's equipment is so UNRELIABLE.
Now, it is possible that an isp that wants to do wireless could go with a product that costs a little more upfront but doesn't have the problems of the new razzle dazzle hyped product. A couple of mature seasoned manufacturers who have very few problems and cost a little more to purchase, but less to maintain would be,
Alvarion Karlnet Trango Motorola Cisco Proxim Tranzeo Raylink Teletronics Demarctech's reliawave
By the way none of these manufacturer's have this much activity on any of their support lists.
A good indication to how well the product performs is this email list, read the archives. a second indication is a new revised firmware upgrade with a specific date set before it is ready. Now think about this, July 18th we will release our fix. huh? why not today? because it's not finished how do you know it will be finished tomorrow if it's not finished today? How the heck do they know tomorrow it will be ready if it's not ready today? Because they are psychic? Do they have a fix in place and they have a very very slow person at the keyboard? Or is it just buying time before they get the next wave of it's someone else's problem? ( remember it's not their fault, it's atmel's fault) Guess they didn't test the product for any length of time.
Just another isp who was foolish enough to jump on the hype bandwagon and spend 20grand on smartbridge products.
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