From: jim@n5ial.chi.il.us (Jim Graham)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: USR bbs # needed & prices of sysop modems 
Distribution: world
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 19:44:20 GMT
Organization: Me? Organized? Hah! :-)

In article <34VgPB3w165w@ZGNews.LoneStar.Org>
peterson@ZGNews.LoneStar.Org writes:

> tdietz@tcedge.mi.org (Tom Dietz) writes:
> >       ...
> > Ha, USR in my opinion, is one of the WORST companys to do business
> > with.
> 
>   Your experiences doesn't reflect mine.

they don't reflect my experiences, either.  I've had very good support
from USR, and have absolutely no problems with the high quality modem
sitting in front of me.  and btw, I work in the telecom biz, and deal
with quite a few modems (among other things)...so that isn't based on
just seeing this one modem.

the setup for the DS is very quick and painless, unlike other modems
from other (unnamed) vendors.  the knowledge of the tech service folk
at USR is very complete (at least, the ones I've dealt with).  the
documentation for the modem is very good, and the modem's default
parameters don't require too much tuning for peak performance (again,
unlike other unnamed vendors...the same ones, in fact).

and just to be fair, let me add that USR is not the only vendor that
the above applies to...they just happen to be the one being trashed
by the original poster here.

I've never had to work with USR's tech support on any problems with my
DS (a good thing, IMHO), but when evaluating another line of modem they
sell, which they bought out from another company (actually, they bought
the company), I did run into some problems that were bought along with
that other company's code/hardware.  in most cases, the USR tech support
folk were aware of the problem and had a fix before I'd even finished
describing the problem.  in other cases, where they hadn't seen it yet,
they were able to duplicate it in their lab, and got back to me with a
fix by the end of that same day.

later on, when they'd replaced all of the old code with 100% USR code,
and replaced the hardware with USR hardware, guess what....the problems
all went away for real.

one of the things that I know does happen is that people call the tech
support number and won't leave a message if the queue is really long....
they just sit there, and eventually hang up (dumb, really dumb).  in
doing this, not only do they lose their place in the queue, but they
haven't let anyone know what the problem was, either.

if anything, my only problem is that the sales droids are tough to
get in touch with at times.  but then, I run into that with sales
droids from virtually every company I deal with (modems, muxes, T-1
and/or T-3 circuits, CSUs, DSU/CSUs, test equipment, and so on....),
so this isn't a problem unique to USR.  let's face it, sales droids
are expected to be onsite at a customer location at times....  :-)

PLEASE NOTE:  even though my employer is not named here, it's still
worth noting that these are *MY* opinions, and not theirs.

later....gotta get onto other things.
   --jim

--
Standard disclaimer....Ever since my cat learned to type, there's no telling
whose thoughts these really are....         73 DE N5IAL (/9)
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