I made the decision to go wireless at my house so that my kids could each have a computer in their room. I have the standard suburban Internet connection protected by a WatchGuard SOHO firewall. My Windows 2003 Server is the DC for the workstations and gives DHCP to it's clients. So I buy this Linksys Wireless Super G router and a few wireless NICs and off I go to set it up. I wanted the wireless router behind the SOHO (for obvious reasons) and right off the bat, the setup CD that comes with the router does not support Windows Server 2003. I could have tried to run it in Win XP mode, but decided to run it from the XP machine because that's what the directions tell me to do right? I setup the connection and it seems to be working ok. I reconfigure the router to be on my local IP network because I do not want the defaults (for obvoius reasons). For the life of me, I can't get this damn thing to work properly behind the SOHO. So after a bit of time I decide to call the 24 X 7 technical support since it's free.
You know that feeling you get when you call tech support for the first time... you are begging that someone speaks english. Well, you guessed it! Here I am on the phone with this woman in India or some other far off place. Her accent is very heavy and she talks way too fast. I tried to explain what I was doing and I wanted her to draw a diagram of what I had. She could not understand what I was talking about. So after 20 minutes or so of going back and forth, she puts me on hold. She comes back on and has this guy talking to her and prompting her to ask me questions (he does not speak any english). They are now telling me that it is not supported to change the IP address from 192.168.1.1 to what I had it set for. Now, I only modified the 3rd octet guys.... After a few more minutes of going round and round because of their lack of technical knowledge and the whole non-english issue, I hang up fairly pissed off.
I thought about what I was doing and wrote all the IPs down and figured the thing out 10 minutes later on my own. So, the DC can connect to the Internet and it's not dropping packets. So back to the wireless since I have the router configured. I set the wireless NIC to the same settings on the router and I get a connection. I'm thinking this is pretty straight forward right? Not 30 seconds later the connection drops. I am running the default security so I can just figure out the NIC and figured I would make it more secure over the weekend. I double check my configuration and get connected again. Up and down, up and down about every so often. I keep getting this message that since I am running the default security, do I want to connect anyway? Uh, yea.. I keep getting dropped. So, screw it.. max security and be done with it. I configure the router for WEP 128 bit encryption. So the router generates this long number and I enter it twice on the NIC and it doesn't work. I mean, it never works.
Now, you have to understand that the last thing I want to do is get back on the phone with tech support. Hell, this is a $80 router!! How hard can this be? Home network 101 kind of thing. I call the number and I get another woman who had a much better voice and I immediately ask if she is American because I am amazed. Nope, she is in the Philippines and she is level 1 support. She goes round and round with me for over an hour and no such luck. So she says she is sending me to level 2 support. YEA! Maybe I am getting closer to someone with some knowledge. Nope.... now, this guy is much smarter than the last two gals, but I spend something like 2 hours on the phone with him going back and forth. In the end, trhe router is determined by the tech to be “broke”. He tells me to get a new router and try it again and if I have problems to call back. It's now midnight and I'm really ticked.
So I get into the office this morning and I have the email shown below asking me to let them know what I think of their tech support. I would like to ask everyone to please click on the URL link and tell them to bring tech support back to the U.S.A. Furthermore, do you really think this guy Steve Gordon (stupid name..) gives a crap what I think? Why didn't I get an email from the guy or gal I spoke to on the phone? If it looks like crap and it smells like crap... it's crap. Well Gordo, now you know what I think and as far as I am concerned, when you get my “broke“ router you know what you can do with it since it only works when it is well connected.
“In order for us to provide you with the highest level of service, it is important to clearly understand your recent experience calling Linksys. We have engaged Walker Information, an independent market research company, to collect your feedback in a short two minute survey which you can access by clicking here (if you cannot click the link, please type this URL into your web browser):
http://survey.walkerinfo.com/2KUQ6C96Q2T3R
Your feedback will be used to develop an action plan to improve our service. We appreciate your business and want to make sure that we meet your expectations.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Sincerely,
Steve Gordon
Vice President, Linksys Services
If you do not wish to take part in this survey, please reply to this e-mail message, and type "DROP" in the subject line.”