Scenario: We have a Ascend/Lucent (since Lucent bought Ascend a ways back) GRF 400. It stopped working. No problem! We have a backup replacement unit. (which cost a good bundle, let me tell you.) Oops. We don’t remember how to get it restored to what the old GRF was set to. No problem, we’ll get support from Ascend/Lucent. It’s no longer under maintenance contract, so we’ll have to pay to get support. No problem. We bust out the Amex card. So we call up Lucent on Friday about 3 to 4pm. We want to get tech support for this GRF and get it up and running.
That’ll be $20,000, then $500 per hour after that.
Um, is that canadian dollars? Because that is way too much. Even the “evil” Microsoftt does not charge that for technical support. I mean $20,000 is a bit high. But tack on that $500/hour too. Holy crap, I want to work for that company if they’re actually gettting that kind of money for non maintenance contract support.
So we want to buy a contract. Mind you that this is the sales guy. Does he want to go home on a friday? Sure he does. So he tells us that we can’t get one made up until Monday. Bull$hit.
So we took out the GRF and probably will set fire to it in the parking lot outside. Good Riddance, Ascend/Lucent. You’ve lost one customer. Not that it matters to them. One customer isn’t going to kill them if they’re tech support costs that much for routers.
So why all this fuss? Keep reading.