Netonix Forums

[rant]
So I do read the UBNT forums and sometimes I read something that I just do not get it.

I read this post today:

would buy a lot of these, if they were to build more like the Netonix 6 port, that provides power on every power not just one. Price point of $169.00

Ours is priced at $149.95, so they are saying they would pay $20 more for a UBNT version made in China?

Do not get me wrong I love UBNT as well but here is what I have seen in the past.

Originally Mike Ford and I tried to sell UBNT on the importance of shielding but UBNT said GPS sync was the future. So I created RF Armor which to be honest saved my WISP and many of your WISPs too because without shielding UBNT did not work well. And we are still waiting on GPS Sync which does nothing for protection against hostile interference anyway. Now UBNT incorporates RF Armor style shielding in many of their devices, and now similar shielding to RF Elements.

People always told UBNT they would pay more for Made in the USA so I kept my stuff made in North America as much as possible but constantly heard people want cheaper China based manufactured pricing?

People wanted a better switch than the ToughSwitch and the ability to power all things like airFIBER radios for years and UBNT did nothing so we did that and kept manufacturing in North America and did a pretty good job at keeping pricing low. Now they offer AF POE options.

We created a Forums since I was banned over there and provided FAST bug fixes, feature implementation, and really do listen to you guys as much as funding permits anyway.

But when I read posts like that above I am thinking why not just buy Netonix instead of encouraging UBNT to copy what we build for you and price us out of the market because they can as they build in China and have 1/2 BILLION in cash reserves.

We asked UBNT to make switches to power AF radios for years and they were not interested until we did it.

Every innovation and feature we put in some of you guys just seem to want UBNT to copy us so you can buy their products?

Who fixes reported bugs faster?
Who implements feature requests faster?
Who tries to do as much in North America as possible?
Who listens to what you need and tries to build it as soon as funds make it possible?

Also by us being here we keep UBNT competitive as well as people like MIMOSA, Ignite, and Cambium.

Why do you think the EP6 was priced so low......WS-6-MINI existed.

For instance why does the AF24HD cost twice as much as AF24? It cost less than $100 more to make AF24HD than AF24?? WHY, BECAUSE THEY CAN, no competition.

Why does the AF5X cost so much less than AF2X and AF3X as they cost nearly the same to build? Because AF5X was competing against MIMOSA B5 and B5C.

Netonix was a major investment risk for me, in fact I will just get my investment back hopefully by end of Q2 this year. So far to date my pay has been about $9 per hour. As soon as we get our investment back and back pay and start building capital (house money) things might really take off and we will have the funds to build some of the things you guys keep asking for.

Also Netonix offers to repair their switches even if out of warranty or damaged by storms or user error for a modest fee so long as we can get parts to fix them. We just fixed and returned 3 switches yesterday that were 2+ years old for less than half the price of a new switch. Would be nice if other manufacturers offered to repair damaged gear.

By the way still waiting on feedback on the new RF Armor cable. Our ends save many WISPs hundreds of dollars per year if not more.

Our cable will save WISPs hundreds of dollars if not thousands of dollars per year over Shireen Cable.

When you guys want to reach me for whatever reason you can usually get a fast response, when I need a fast response on something it does not always happen?

NEED REVIEWS OF WISP CABLE SO I CAN PLACE NEXT PRODUCTION ORDER OR SCRAP THE WHOLE IDEA.

STILL WAINTING ON PEOPLE TO TEST AND VERIFY THE FOLLOWING:
MSTP
QinQ Double Tagging
IGMP SNOOPING WITH VLANs
SCADA

People asked for wooden spools on cable and we listened as usual.

Anyway this is me just venting so [/rant]

SORRY FOR RANTING AND VENTING.

sirhc wrote:[rant]
So I do read the UBNT forums and sometimes I read something that I just do not get it.

I read this post today:

would buy a lot of these, if they were to build more like the Netonix 6 port, that provides power on every power not just one. Price point of $169.00

Ours is priced at $149.95, so they are saying they would pay $20 more for a UBNT version made in China?

Talk is cheap. Easy for someone to say they would pay more but really would they?

Oh, and the MINI doesn't provide power on every port.

Anyway... some folks want single source and may pay a small premium for turnkey. Usually it is based on the notion of better interoperability or better (no finger pointing) support but IMHO those are unobtainium anyway. If anything, 3rd parties hold their feet to the fire. Where can a WISP expect everything to come from one manufacturer? I laugh when they drool over the notion that Ubiquiti will fill all their solar power needs.

I had a chuckle over Robert's David versus Goliath story. Netonix is the David now to Robert's Goliath.

where is my sling shot anyways.....

I had a chuckle over Robert's David versus Goliath story. Netonix is the David now to Robert's Goliath.

Yea, I was wondering where that analogy is coming from.

Robert is the ONLY Goliath in the WISP market valued at BILLIONS of dollars with 1/2 BILLION in reserve cash, a private jet, and PRO NBA Team. And good for him I say but he is a Goliath too just smaller.

I guess he is comparing himself to Apple, HP, Cisco, and such in which case that is the Enterprise market not the lowly WISP Market.

Do I think Robert will keep gaining ground on those BIGGER guys....hell yes but with a valuation of 4+ BILLION dollars I just do not see the whole David persona. I see the clash of Titans just one is smaller for now.

I am rooting for Robert in all things except those that I do....LOL, sorry Robert I need to put Cheerios on my kids table but the small scraps I take from the floor of your table would not cover your transportation and security costs.

sirhc wrote:

I had a chuckle over Robert's David versus Goliath story. Netonix is the David now to Robert's Goliath.

Yea, I was wondering where that analogy is coming from...

It is of his early years when he was going up against MikroTik.

sirhc wrote:I am rooting for Robert in all things except those that I do....LOL, sorry Robert I need to put Cheerios on my kids table but the small scraps I take from the floor of your table would not cover your transportation and security costs.

Chris, the scraps you grab off his floor is less than the tangible benefit he enjoys from your contributions to the WISP industry. As you said in your OP, RF Armor helped the WISP industry that in turn bought more Ubiquiti kit. Until such time as he can take over the World, he will let you be as you are still an asset to him.

Dave wrote:where is my sling shot anyways.....

LOL
I noted the same name before I even wrote it.

sirhc wrote:...

Who fixes reported bugs faster?
Who implements feature requests faster?
Who tries to do as much in North America as possible?
Who listens to what you need and tries to build it as soon as funds make it possible?

...

Also Netonix offers to repair their switches even if out of warranty or damaged by storms or user error for a modest fee so long as we can get parts to fix them. We just fixed and returned 3 switches yesterday that were 2+ years old for less than half the price of a new switch. Would be nice if other manufacturers offered to repair damaged gear.

Game changers. All of them. Shows the commitment to excellence you guys have.

I absolutely cringe even thinking about an RMA of anything other than Netonix.

Thanks Jake.

Julian (Our RMA tech who learned his trade in the Navy and used to repair Cisco equipment) has really started to fall into place and is able to fix boards we normally would simply replace lowering RMA costs for customers. RMA turnaround time has also improved greatly. The biggest hold up is me as I am the one that emails everyone if there is a charge for the repair so the units get fixed fairly quickly then sometimes waits on me to email you so your RMA delay is almost always my fault.

Here are the 10 most common types of RMAs in order of most quantities:

1) Ground current, Static, and ESD damage. - Not covered under warranty
Depending if the operator has the tower grounds bonded to the electrical service grounds properly determines if the damage is too extensive to repair the board. If the board is damaged too badly it requires us to install a new board which is still have the price +/- of a new switch. Typically if they do have the tower grounds bonded to the service grounds a current sensor and possible Ethernet transformer is blown and the repair is less than $50.00.

We started making a board modification as of September 2016 that so far has prevented any more ground current damage but users should still practice good grounding (read the posts below) as this MOD will not allow you to walk on water or feed the masses with a couple fish and a loaf of bread.

We do add all latest boards MODs on all RMAs that come in for any reason.

Users can chose to to make this modification if they like and we explain the process here:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2584

Information on proper site grounding is located here:
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1816
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=188
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1429
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1786&start=30#p13447
https://community.ubnt.com/t5/airFiber/ ... rue#M31070

2) Defective 3.3V CAP on WS-8-150-AC, WS-8-150-DC, and WS-6-MINI - Covered under warranty
This was from an out of spec CAP used in 2 production runs of these units. Not all units will have an issue and to our best estimates we feel this can affect 2%-5% of units. The symptom is that unit will reboot if the user is using at least 3 or more active ports. Some unit will work fine up to 5 or more ports. We have extended this issue to be covered to the life of the switch so if you don't realize you have the issue for 3 years it is still covered under warranty.

3) Defective CAP (C51) on 250 watt power supplies - Covered under warranty
This affected 1 batch of power supplies used in the WS-12-250-AC and WS-10-250-AC. The symptoms are if the power supply is not loaded with at least 50-60 watts the unit will reboot after several hours and keep rebooting quicker and quicker until eventually it gets stuck in a reboot loop. If you let it cool down it operates again as it did before for several hours. We have extended this issue to be covered to the life of the switch so if you don't realize you have the issue for 3 years it is still covered under warranty.

4) Water damage - Not covered under warranty
This is from leaky cables mostly but also box leakes. Most times we can repair the unit for half the cost of a new switch +/- or less depending on what gets damaged.

5) Bad fans - Covered under warranty if within warranty period

6) Lady Bugs - Not covered under warranty
Surprising number of units come in with dead lady bugs blown apart on the board. We recently changed out chassis holes to be smaller than the lady bugs which may help but those chassis will not reach you guys for several months. Besides not sure how much it will help has the fan openings, well, they can always get into the switch there.

7) Full on lightning strikes - Not covered under warranty
Not much that we can do about these. Boards simply blown apart inside but we do repair them by replacing the boards which is about half the price +/- of a new unit.

8) Flash corruption - Covered under warranty during warranty period
This happens mostly from power failures during a firmware upgrade or sparking a DC switch. Sparking a DC switch means the operator did not make a fast solid DC connection and basically power cycles the unit really fast until it gets a good connection. We recommend using a DC breaker or switch.

9) Firmware upgrade - Covered under warranty during warranty period
You would be surprised how many people send a unit back for RMA for an issue that a firmware upgrade would repair.

10) Failed power supplies - Covered under warranty during warranty period


Whereas it would have been nice had we put the ground current MOD in from the beginning instead of discovering the need in September 2016 which would have greatly reduced our total # of RMAs even if people have poor grounding but we are on RMA 684 out of over 32,000 units so our RMA percentage is running 2.1%. But keep in mind a lot of RMAs are for Flash corruptions, water damage, lightning strikes, lady bugs and so on.

The number of warranty RMAs from "failures" such as defective parts like the CAP issues above or simply a BAD unit is well below 1% but we are constantly analyzing all RMAs and improving the designs to be more resilient in the future. Our goal is to have a switch that has less than a 1% RMA rate for any reason but I guess that will depend on the Ladybugs and also operators, but we will do our part as best we can.

Sounds good. Just lucky enough to get a batch of 3 ws-150-ac with bad cap. Drove to replace one with the other. Then drove to replace it again. Outages, customer calls, lost time, ... The 3rd runs at another site with fluctuation 24V voltage. So have to schedule a replacement. Have a dead WS-250-AC (PowerSupply) and a dead WS-Mini (Dont know) on shelf. None of these is old.
And with this "ground current MOD" I have the bad feeling there will die some additionaly. Or I have to schedule a month of switch replacements with the outages this causes.

So for me the failure rate is a bit higher then claimed.

Yes, sample size makes all the difference. There is an old saying, "the solution to pollution is dilution" which means you need to buy more to get your numbers to match with Chris' numbers.

I do realize there is added cost for RMA when international shipping is involved. Keep in mind that Netonix bears half of the added cost as well with their return shipping on warranty RMA. Here in Canada maybe I could just send them to Dave by dogsled if I had to.