A little bit on me, I oversee 5 data centers with all the servers/switches/routers/appliances that make a data center run. I've been doing firmware for a while now and it’s a big deal to do it right so that you do not have a failure. That being said,
1. What was your QC? Did they not give you 100 routers flash them and then give them out to the people who work there? How long did you let the firmware cook to see how stable it was? What was the standard checklist?
2. What was the logic to not be able to downlevel the firmware (never heard of that in my life) utter and complete disregard for the customer and the hardware sol. (service of life)
3. I understand the idea of taking 802.11b away. Not many people use it and if they did then they should have read the Read me file.
4. As a vendor and yes I said that word, you’re a vendor and this product that was released was not tested to the level I believe it should have. As your customer I expect you to test any update before you push it to the public. I do not believe this was done.
5. For those of us educated enough to ssh into the router give us the dev firmware and a temp shell. The old firmware can be pushed with the correct commands. Also, why did you go so cheap on the ram? Enterprise support would have enough ram to push the firmware and upon reboot it updates the firmware to the new level. This points back to number 2 down leveling your firmware.
6. If D-Link needs a quality control manager and I can really see you do let me know. You are running around without core standards that should be honored if you screw up. The public is not going to put your head on a spike if you say yes, we screwed up, and please let us fix it. They will however come after you if you ignore them and refuse to owe up to poor development of standards.
7. I found a Linksys on craigs list that I’m using because I didn’t have time to call or deal with this mess. Well you are in luck, I do now. So I’m going to call get some information and send the router back if I have to but I would really like to be a part of the solution and not just a number in the crowd. People who flash systems are pretty bright. The open source world has embraced ddwrt firmware if you make kick ass hardware people will write kick ass software for it. Open source is your friend; don’t strong arm your products like apple.
Show some consideration and respect to your customers and they will really stay with you. But guys, really, admit you screwed up and fix the issue.
Fix number 1. Take the 1.11 firmware off the boards. So no one else gets hurt.
Update.
Netgear saw a twitter post that I was disappointed in the firmware crippling the router. I would like to say it’s been something I can live with but truth is I made the purchase for the wireless N and it was running until the 1.11NA firmware update. It disappeared and I believed perhaps it was my macbook? But, when I asked my wife to check her Wi-Fi she could not see the BlackMesaLabs_N only BlackMesaLabs_G, which was really odd because it was there before the update.
Being the person I am I fired up KisMAC and its true the router no longer broadcasted Wireless N, now this issue really had my attention. Before I was annoyed but now, I'm just dismayed at the failure of the hardware/firmware. I did all the usual power cycle, left it powered off overnight, reset and even flashed again the 1.11NA (I've had this issues with Solaris servers sometimes needed to be updated twice to work) with no change in the behavior of the router.
I consider myself a pretty bright person when it comes to firmware. I used to take ATI firmware for low end cards edit the firmware to unlock the additional pipelines to make it a high end video card. I also do bios for EVGA system boards when they would not update to the latest amd release.
I'm not one of those board posters that says, I'm never going purchase another netgear/linksys/belkin/cisco again. I'll write a letter to the CEO and let them know what is going on. Often (and you would be shocked) how much the CEO does not know what is going on down to this level. We the disappointed are sometimes considered acceptable loss for customers. In this time of people not buying much you need to keep the customers you have happy.
Try the twitter route before stomping, sure your unhappy but take the time and energy to think your way out of the technical mess you’re in.
What I am saying is this, follow the process of support. And if it does not work then write a letter, not an email but an actual letter about the issues your having with your hardware. Write them to the board of directors everyone in the yahoo financial information on a company.
I've had very good responses for Mike Dell and Apple just by writing letters. Emails get lost in the noise but writing letters takes time and process.
I'll keep all of you updated, one way or another this is going to get resolved. Either I'll be happy or not so happy and the worst you can do is never purchase a product from a company that has poor support.
More people buy products from word of mouth than what they read in magazines or TV. I made my netgear purchase because of the engineers that I work with suggested it.
So, here I am.
Goodnight, Jason N in Phoenix, AZ
Update!
Spoke to Natalie in customer support. She was pleasant informed but not technical but she will, get you where you need to go with support.
1. To save time and energy register your product. I have NOT done this and I should have in the beginning.
2. We are being heard but be intelligent with your concerns write them down and let them know what is happening.
3. People who visit and live in forums are more technical than the rest of the consumer’s netgear knows this. I can 90% of the time find my solution in forums people who post here and help out here are normally very nice and putting forth the effort
4. I don't work for Netgear as one person message said I did. I work for a bank and I'm a firmware engineer. I do all hardware in the datacenters. If it has firmware I do it, let’s settle that now.
5. Later today, I'll be going home early to talk to a 3rd level support person. Yes, it’s a lot of effort but nothing good comes easy. Like I said in my post above, work within the system to achieve what standard of support will make you happy.
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Topic: As one Firmware Engineer to the D-Link Firmware Engineers, What Happened? (Read 10841 times)