I’m not sure what’s going on with this list, but some of my posts never made it.
They were actually complimentary of SB, so I can’t imagine a moderator removing them.
Bobby,
I would be shocked if SB would answer your point number 1. I would NEVER
reveal exact RMA numbers and I really don’t think you could expect something so
unreasonable. I DO think it would be nice for Nish (as he suggested) to report the
solutions to some of the whiners on the list that complained but never let us know
when or how their problem was resolved. ☺ I've been guilty of this too.
I tend to agree that the firmware still needs work. I do not think there are
as many problems with the product as people on the list tend to be screaming. Misery
loves company. I think those happiest with the product have little use for the list,
right?
I have only had to RMA one AB and that was because the connector broke off
when a cable was over tightened. I was thankful they were nice enough to offer an RMA.
I just ordered 6 APPO, so we will see if I'm the next one yelling. The
correct etiquette is to talk to support about a problem BEFORE you post to the list.
I usually give support 24 hours to answer a problem before posting to the list, unless
it's a weekend and I need immediate help (then I nicely ask for help from the list).
I must admit that I am not as patient about email support as I would be with phone
support. I hate sending emails and waiting for an answer that "may" or "may not" be a
solution, only to reply and wait again. I think if support has to send someone more
than two emails to solve a problem, they should pick up the phone before sending a
third email. Sorry . . . I'm not griping about SB's support . . . just fuming about
the Tech industries attitude towards support as a whole.
Hang in there guys/gals! SB seems to be listening, but change is not going to happen
overnight.
Jeremy
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bobby Bounds
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 4:52 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [smartBridges] Quality Control
Dear Nish,
The content of your letter increases my concern about the quality and reliability of
the SB product line as well as where the company and the outdoor product line is
headed in the next year. The statistics you quote only add to this concern as they are
not detailed enough to draw any conclusions from. I believe your marketing plan is to
sell into the WISP market. If so, the WISP’s that stay in business over the next
year (many won’t) need outdoor equipment for their infrastructure that is more
reliable than we here at Airwave Internet have been seeing coming from SB in the last
three months.
I look forward to your ‘comprehensive info package’. In the meantime my comments
to your post are presented below:
• The facts are the failure rate of APPO’s and ABO’s in recent months is
unacceptable for running a WISP and will contribute to the failure rate of the
WISP’s themselves. There is no room for interpretation here no matter what your
worldwide numbers are telling you.
• If it’s true that 40% of RMA’s are ‘good units’, this is troublesome. What
motivates a customer to RMA a unit? If they are anything like us, we are short on
time, short on money, short on manpower . . . . and we open the box pull out the unit,
configure it in the shop, perform a quick test to make sure it’s not DOA and head
out for the install. Later if the customer can’t connect or if one of our AP’s go
down, we go out, usually on a very hot or very cold roof, with the skeptical customer
eyeing our every move and try and determine what could be wrong (any one of a hundred
things, usually). So, we try to log into the unit and try to get to the root cause.
After one or two hours of screwing around, which is not uncommon due to the finicky
nature of radios that are flaky, we can only conclude the unit has a problem and we
RMA it. When SB gets these RMA’s back and puts them on the bench and finds 40% of
them ‘fine’ it makes me very skeptical of SB’s testing process. Granted, some
percentage of units working perfectly well will always get RMA’ed. But I would think
that number should be less than 5%, not 40% as you have stated. To properly test
RMA’ed units that appear to be fine you’d have to install and mount them out in
the environment and then log them for a period of time. I doubt you do that.
• As for your comments about ‘negative sentiments’, given human nature we can
always expect emotion to be a factor. Also, ‘piling on’ is another thing to watch
for. However, in regards to the “Dead Ethernet” problem, “Flaky Firmware”
problem, and the “Early Failure” problem, and other problems I am not aware of, I
would guess in excess of 90% of the posts I’ve read are written by reasonable people
just trying to get a job done and their equipment is letting them down. As for your
comment about the lack of follow up posts, in my case I can tell you that my instincts
and experience tell me that the talk is just that, talk and that more talk isn’t
going to make things better so maybe some of us SB customers are just plain tired at
this point….maybe too tired and too discouraged to continue to pursue the
‘talking’. What SB needs to do is make the outdoor units reliable. Does a $280 SB
unit need to be as reliable as a $1,200 unit from another manufacturer? No, but half
as reliable would be nice.
• As for your support staff ‘working with us to resolve the issue’ . . . great
but we know reliability is built in, not added later.
In regards to the statistics you state:
1. RMA rate is 3% (1.8% effective) overall.
• What are the RMA rates by product? by month? by USA region? How have the RMA rates
changed since the APPO’s and ABO’s first hit the streets? Perhaps your
comprehensive report will contain this. Personally I don’t care…..I just want more
reliable equipment. Charge us more if you have to.
2. You state your manufacturing defect rate is less than .01%.
• Is that correct? So, one unit in a thousand off the assembly line is defective?
But the actual RMA rate is 1.8%. And you are asking US why? Could it be early failure?
Could it be your QA process? You tell us.
So, in summary thank you for your time. Keep trying, and remember, all we want is more
reliable outdoor units.
Regards,
Bobby Bounds
Airwave Internet, LLC
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
505-867-2413
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nish Park
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 3:30 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [smartBridges] Quality Control
In the last few days a lot of forum bandwidth has been spent on the perceived quality
issues with our products. We are preparing a comprehensive info package to address
these comments. In the mean time here is some info.
1) Our macro level (worldwide and over past 5 months) RMA rate is about 3%. About 40%
of these RMA do not have any problems. So the effective rate is about 1.8%. We have
comprehensive process in place to monitor this and continually improve this further.
Our goal is to reach under 1% over next few weeks (more details on the process will be
shared later).
2) From the nature of the forums (this as well as others), we have come to realize
that it is lot easier for negative sentiments to linger around. In general, when
people have some problem, they post a message. Our support staff would work with them
to resolve the issue. But it is rare that a follow-up post would be made clarifying
the issue.
3) Many times we see posts that do not appear to be genuine problem statements. When
we reach out and try to work with those individuals, they do not reply. Unfortunately
this happens often enough.
4) The product shortage and availability issues had contributed to adding to the
frustration level. But by now enough shipments should be reaching the distributors to
take care of ALL the back orders. In addition, new distributors have been appointed to
provide you alternatives.
5) We are going through the growing pains (like 100% month over month) but please be
assured that our focus on quality is unwavering.
6) Here is an issue we are trying to figure out. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
The outgoing quality level from the factory is better than 99.9x%. Field return rate
is 3% (or 1.8%). So what could happen in between that some people experience real bad
things?
Nish
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