We have 5 of them, (3 for a couple of months) and I've yet to get
my problem resolved with them.
Here are some of the symptoms:
1) users sometimes get fast busy signals. The first livingston
tech said "our units can't be causing this, it's a Bell problem."
set console and set debug isdn showed that the unit was doing "sending
call reject". A Bell problem? I think not. Rebooting the unit clears
this.
2) the isdn line will sometimes go down. Each unit has 2 PRI.
sometimes one, sometimes both of the PRI's will go down. During this
time, again, callers get fast busies. Again, a reboot clears the problem.
3) extremely sluggish performance, sometimes. Pings on local
10/100 baseT switched ethernet will be in the 100-700ms range, when normally
they are 1 (or, really, <1). During this time, users can't dial in,
and/or their performance is horrible (imagine that, with that kind of
latency). Again, a reboot clears the issue.
4) multi-chassis PPP breaks multi-channel PPP, with respect
to the fact that idle timers are NOT handled correctly. If a user
has an idle limit, then they will be logged out exactly that long
after they've logged in, because one of the channels always shows
idle (even tho the traffic counters are incrementing on it.)
Ok, so it's a little buggy, right? My beef is that I've
notified livingston, called them, cajoled them. I've been sent to
a senior engineer (Todd) or somesuch, and I've even called his boss,
to find out WHEN THIS SHIT IS GOING TO BE FIXED. I get pacified for
the day, and weeks later, I have to call them back again asking,
again, WHEN IS THIS SHIT GOING TO BE FIXED.
Well, it's not being fixed, and I'm getting mighty pissed.
I can't provide good service to my customers with this crap that they
call a terminal server. Ascends have poorer modem connections, but
they don't cause nearly this many headaches. USR's are a pain to
install, and reek of inefficient technology, but again, they are more
stable than this crap.
Livingston: I'm asking you in a public forum. When is
this shit going to be fixed? If it's not, I'm getting my money back
and buying something else.
Everyone else: be VERY WARY of pm3's. I'm a VERY unhappy
customer right now.