We acknowledge some problems, but please recognise it is an "open beta"
release.
>We ordered a PM3 the day after the CT1 code was announced, based entirely
>on the reputation of Livingston for having products which work. The
>experience has not been entirely satisfactory.
>
>Users who formerly dialed into a CT1 which went into a channel bank and
>then into Multitech modems and into a PM2 are unable to stay connected
>on the PM3 for the same length of time. Most of these are dedicated users
>who are accustomed to seeing a redial once a week or more.
>
>Now, I could hand-wave this to US West, except that it's the exact same
>equipment on their end, different equipment on our end, and now it doesn't
>work as well.
>
>But there's something even worse: some substantial percentage of the time,
>the PM3 does not detect the disconnect. I suspect this is related to the
>early disconnect. That means that the line is held busy by the PM3! Thus,
>when the dedicated user tries to dial back in to his dedicated line, he
>gets a busy signal. (we work around this by putting a very low idle time
>on such lines and pinging them every 2 minutes; when the PM3 resets an idle
>line, the line goes normal)
I'll bet you are configured for FXS loop-start. This is a known behavior
and engineering is actively working on the cure.
>If you are only using the PM3 for hunt group dialin, you probably won't
>care too much, because the hunt group will roll over to the next line.
>Still, though, if the user gets disconnected before they log in, the PM3
>holds the line busy in "USERNAME" state forever, where there is no timeout.
>We have to go through about once a day and reset lines which have become
>unusable because the PM3 cannot tell that there's no one at the other end.
>
>Also, the PM3 has crashed several times---compared to the PM2, which ran
>for 6 months or more between crashes or problems.
I didn't see any mention of this in your trouble ticket. Perhaps you can
email me off-line to address the crash incidents?
>I wouldn't be blathering about this so loudly in public, except that we
>logged a call with Livingston (32798) about 2 days after we got our PM3,
>which was about 5 weeks ago!!, Support has been good about responding
>to pings and even occasionally calling us to say "we know you're out
>there," but the politeness of the support group is not what fixes problems.
>
>I entered another call into support@livingston.com on the same day, and
>haven't heard back on that on at all. I hear folks at Livingston claiming
>that the support queue goes to zero, but the only way that can be happening
>is if they are deleting queries without answering them.
I can't speak for the way the que is handled, but I know they are not
deleting tickets just to get the que to zero. BTW, I looked and your ticket
is still open so that verifies that we are not just deleting tickets. ;-)
>Something is terribly, terribly wrong either with the way that calls
>are escalated, or the way that engineering resources are being allocated.
Engineering resources are assigned, hopefully there is a glimmer of light
at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
-- Marty Likier Product Marketing Mgr. marty@livingston.com