While I hate to be a "me too" person, I have to concur with everyone
that's pissed off about the terrible modem code. It really is aweful. While
some people apparently aren't seeing quite as many problems as others, we are
definately having major problems with Winmodems (both LT and USR/3COM) and
Rockwell. These modems are by far the most common in our area and the
Winmodems come in all the new Dells, Compaqs and Gateways. Upgrading these
modems generally seems to just move the problem from a failed initial
connection, to a disconnection after being connected for a few minutes. This
is just as bad.
While I would love to blame it on the modems and the phone company,
every single customer we have dial into our single Total Control Hiper works
flawlessly and immediately. While I REALLY hate the Total Control rack for a
variety of reasons the most important reason for its existance, the ability to
actually get customers online and keep them online, is why we'll probably not
buy any more PM3's and start using the Total Control racks, at least until
Lucent gets around to fixing their modem code. Despite what MZ often says
about the TC and Portmasters having comparable modem code, based on our
experience, he is WAY off base. I haven't found a customer yet that couldn't
connect faster and with more stability to the TC compared to the PM3.
How Lucent can delay for months releasing some sort of fix, or at least
a few quick-release beta versions of ComOS, to address problems with the SINGLE
MOST IMPORTANT part of their product I fail to understand. Enough people are
posting about problems that this is certainly far more widespread than just the
few complaints to the list would lead one to believe. Our customers don't want
to hear excuses. They want a service provider that works with their equipment
with as little hassle as possible. Blaming all these problems on the newness
of V90 is wonderful but doesn't help anyone. In our case the only solution was
to buy a different brand of terminal server. Anyone stuck with just
Portmasters has my sympathy. If you're one of those lucky people who's
customers don't have Winmodems or Rockwell modems, or who's customers don't
particularly care if they get a 56K connection, or who's customers don't get
upset if they get disconnected every 3 or 4 minutes, then more power to you.
And yes, we've had an open ticket for about 3 weeks now. It took 2.5
weeks just to get it escalated to "the asynch guys". By that time our future
plans for new terminal servers was changed to non-Lucent equipment. 2.5 weeks
is an eternity with the tech support phones ringing off the hook all day and
night about modem problems.
While this may seem like just another rant, its actually a strong plea
from a customer. I love everything about the portmasters except their modem
code. And I'll say it again - the modem code is the single most important
part. Any other feature or lack thereof can generally be worked around by the
staff, but not the modem code.
-Scott
-- +-----------------------+--------------------------------+ | Scott Lampert | Systems Administrator | | scott@ioa.com | Internet of Asheville | |(828) 687-8848 Ext 310 | http://www.ioa.com | +-----------------------+--------------------------------+ - To unsubscribe, email 'majordomo@livingston.com' with 'unsubscribe portmaster-users' in the body of the message. Searchable list archive: <URL:http://www.livingston.com/Tech/archive/>