Another thing to watch out for that I had happen once was a weird happening when someone dropped a tool chest on a ABO's cable and neglected to tell anyone, next thing you know I was cutting the ABO to 1' to ship for an RMA, crimped it and tested it at 1' then added a coupler and more cable and it worked, I nearly killed that contracter ARG ;)
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Oswalt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 12:09 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I think if they keep with their game-plan, they will have something we will all enjoy. I had one RMA and thought I had another flaking ABO, but after reading Chris's email, I think it's possible I need to recrimp the end again. ;-) If that's not the case, support will get my email tomorrow. :-)
--
Jeremy
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Bobby Bounds
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 8:28 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [smartBridges] Quality Control
Jeremy,
In regards to your point about proper etiquette being to post to support first....point taken. My topics relate to overall reliability which IMHO is a manufacturing issue that tech support cannot help with. Also it was a generalized response in response to Nish's open letter.
SmartBridges has the resources to make reliable equipment. Their engineers have good ideas but may be lacking experience in designing equipment that can live in hostile outdoor environments.
I'd like to see SB come out with an 'Infrastructure' grade radio. Twice the price maybe but in a NEMA box with a totally different design but compatible with the overall SB line. Call it the Air Point Pro Infrastructure (APPI). All the cool high end features would go in it. It would have higher power, built-in surge and lightning protection, totally weatherproof sub-compartment for connections, an optional built-in antenna for those who want to use it as a bridge and just want to mount one box, the mounting system would resemble the satellite TV type so you'd have azimuth and elevation...and on and on. It would be totally modular so any sub-component that failed could be quickly removed and replaced. Power options, locally powered or POE. It would have really good remote management and remote re-power and re-boot. It would have a socket for an amplifier board, a socket for a router, a socket for a second radio.....you know....totally modular design. Designed by WISP's for WISP's is what I'm thinking here. I bet they'd sell a ton of 'em.
Regards....Bobby
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Jeremy Oswalt
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 5:36 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [smartBridges] Quality Control
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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