TechnoMagicians Weblog

Linksys PAP2 And Anti-competitive practice

Tim A — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 22:49:38 -0400

I wrote about Linksys and their declining customer service in the past but this time its about their anti-competitive practices.

Just recently I purchased a Linksys PAP2 VoIP adapter thinking I could use it to connect to my VoIP provider. It does say on the box that it is a Vonage start-up kit but nowhere does it say that one requires service from Vonage. It only makes mention that if you sign-up with Vonage you'll get a discount of some sorts.

After trying to get this thing to work and researching a bit on the net I discovered that Linksys used to sell a version of this same device without it being tied down to Vonage. However, Vonage must have put enough money in their pockets to convince them to pull it. You can't find it anywhere. Vonage must have also put enough money into Linksys pockets to go out and buy Sipura. The Linksys PAP2 is actually a Sipura SPA 2000 I believe. At one point Linksys licensed the technology but now they gobbled up Sipura so they can probably pull their products from the market as well.

I'm finding it almost impossible to find a decent device like the Sipura SPA 2000. Its ridiculous what is going on in this industry with service providers trying to tie you to their service and give you no choice whatsoever.

Since the Sipura looks to be the best product for what I need out there I might bite the bullet and just purchase it. If it disappears as a product or support falls of the planet due to Linksys at least it will give me a couple years of good use I hope.

No wonder SipPhone sued them. I believe they won the case. I'm 100% behind them.

In light of this I'm seriously considering whether I'll ever again buy a Linksys product for myself, my companies and any clients.

Linksys Redeemed - Sort Of

Tim A — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 15:40:02 -0400

Well, its time to update the Linksys thread here. Last week I called Sam back to report that the new router exhibits the same behavior and wanted to give him some feedback on what I tried etc. Never heard back from him.

This week I'm having troubles with a different Linksys product (a wireless router / AP). The wireless component to it just seems to have stopped working. The actual WLAN Link light does not light up which indicates the wireless component is disabled. It seemed to start doing this a few days ago after running fine for at least 6 months. I'd unplug the unit and it would work wirelessly for about 2 minutes. The longer I unplugged the longer it would work but today the light won't come on at all and no wireless whatsoever.

I've tried a ton of different things including firmware changes, different channels, different WEP settings, different SSIDs. You name it. Also tried resetting the router to factory default and no go.

At least this time I was able to get a tech on the online chat and he pretty much said I tried everything I could and to go through the RMA process. I have to check my records but I'm pretty sure this unit has already been replaced once. I've had so many different replacement units for different Linksys products I have around here that I'm starting to loose track and faith.

Linksys Redeemed

Tim A — Thu, 27 May 2004 14:17:57 -0400

In the second May 27th update on this post, Sam may have single handedly redeemed Linksys in my view. He was patient, professional, and knew what he was talking about.

Not to mention that they are replacing my unit to see if that solves my problem. Update: I actually received the replacement unit on May 28th (fantastic). I just haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

This is the kind of customer service I recall from Linksys in the early days.

Linksys Customer Service

Tim A — Wed, 26 May 2004 00:05:52 -0400

Well, it seems Linksys Customer Service has jumped the shark. I've been a very long time supporter and purchaser (probably since a few months of them selling to consumers) of Linksys products but its looking like that is coming to an end.

Ironic that it was only last year that I was praising their customer service.

Here is a summary of the latest support attempt:

April 27 - After watching the online support chat thing spin for 4 hours I give up. I realize it was probably broken but it actually had activity displayed and said a rep would be with me shortly.

April 27 - approx 5pm - Sent in a support request by their website. Receive an automated response that they received the request, attached a ticket number to it and notified me that it would be handled by the next available technician.

April 28 - 1:07 am - Received a response by email. Obviously they didn't read my initial report of the problem because their answer was way off base and pointing me to two knowledge base articles that were way off base.

April 28 - I send a response back asking them to read my initial problem again and that the response they sent me has nothing to do with my problem.

April 29 - 6:31am - I receive an email with all kinds of apologies and that they need to send this to a 2nd level for assistance. Apparently I will be notified when they have a solution.

May 13 - I send an email saying I still haven't heard from anyone. No response.

May 18 - I try three times to get someone on the online support chat again. First two times I get dumped out after the rep comes online after considerable wait. After going through all the history again I'm told that they are having problems forwarding this to the proper department. All kinds of apologies and a promise that I would hear from 2nd level support within 24 hours.

May 19 - I get an email response from the initial support rep who handle the case. Just as useless as a response as the first. Again, obviously didn't read what the issue was and asked me to try something that I already detailed in the original request. Also this wasn't 2nd level support and I never did hear from them within 24 hours as promised. I have the chat transcript to prove they actually promised 24 hours.

May 19 - I respond saying that I haven't heard from 2nd level support and that the latest from this first rep again has nothing useful in regards to my problem.

May 25 - Still haven't had a response from them. I'll likely followup once again and see if they ever respond. Will update this post when necessary.

May 26 - Sent a followup email to let them know I still haven't heard from anyone.

May 27 - Received an email response with the usual insincere apologies and asking me to supply them with a bunch of information so they can call me back. I'm pretty sure they have all this info. I'll send a reply anyway.

May 27 - Received a call from Sam (a product manager I think he said). Very nice guy to deal with on the phone and was very helpful in debugging my problem. In the end, he decided to replace my router with a new one to see if that will resolve the problem. He said a new one should be shipping out today. One funny thing was that he thought the call was about an issue I had last November which was never solved then but just in chatting about it it was resolved in about a minute. Then we moved onto my current problem.

I was going to blog about this as it was happening but never got around to it. After seeing a post about Linksys on Wireless Bandit it reminded me to post this.

Update: Network World Fusion seemed to pick up on this here.