ConsumerSafety.com

INTRODUCTION

In the wee hours of the morning a power surge from a lightning strike took out the Ethernet port on my SpeedStream DSL modem.  Really.  The lights on it indicated that there was a DSL and Internet connection, but there was no Ethernet output.  Therefore, there was no Internet input available to the router and network.  (As a side note, both the modem and the router were plugged into a surge protector that was plugged into an APC UPS/surge protector.  Perhaps the killing spike came through the phone line?  Interestingly, nothing else was damaged).

My review on the 2Wire 2701HG-B DSL Modem-&-Router Gateway comes from my subjective viewpoint as a consumer and not from that of a refined and informed technogadgetroid – plenty of those types out there already.

Having gotten tired of the sporadic breaks in connectivity in my Belkin N-wireless router, I was also ready for a new router as well as for a DSL modem.  That is why I was happy to learn about all the 2-in-1 solutions of router-and-a-modem.  There were quite a few on the market and I did a little research.  But when I asked my wife who was out running errands to stop by Best Buy to see what they had, they sold her one of these.

The box indicates that it is an AT&T brand (helps to assure me it will work with my AT&T DSL service), but it is made by 2Wire.  It was priced $99 before tax, but they are going for 40%-60% less than that on eBay.  But I was in a hurry to get back online so I decided that paying retail was OK.

When I first learned that it was made by 2Wire, I was a little concerned because of my previous unpleasant experience with Blockbuster’s 2Wire set top video-on-demand Internet box.  However, with kudos on the box from the Best Buy salesgeek and with the box in hand and no other handy alternative, I press forward.

In resisting my temptation and tendency to write prose, I’ll just get down to brass tacks…

INSTALLATION

Taking it out of the box and hooking it up was pretty easy.  There were 4 DSL phone filters included in the box, but I did not use them, and instead just kept the ones I already had.

Since it is a 2-in-1 unit, there is only one power supply, so I freed up an electrical plug.  Plus, there is no longer any need for a patch cable to connect the router to the modem.

UNIT CONFIGURATION

First you connect your computer to the modem/router (“gateway”) with the patch cable.  So far, so good, but setting up was not as straight-forward as I had expected.  I guess that plug-n-play is not here yet, so you still have to use an installation CD.

I tried my best to follow the instructions and not let what I know about good user-experience-design get in the way.  That is, I found their process to be a little clunky, and not intuitive.  And, their navigational cues were not clear.  Additionally, their little installation wizard did not work in my FireFox browser.  After several failed attempts at launching the CD, I decided to try it with Internet Explorer for just-in-case.  And that did the trick.

Back to the non-intuitive navigation in their installation wizard: a brief call to tech support to speak with Nadeem on the other side of the planet quickly provided the insights I needed to complete the task.

Being that I am not any kind of network security expert or authority on the different kinds of wireless authentication protocols, I stuck with the default, which I believe is WEP-open or something like that.  Instead of letting me designate a cool passphrase for my network guests to connect with, it simply requires a 10-digit number (use the default one stamped on the side of the unit, or easily choose your own).

COMPUTER CONFIGURATION

When turn on your computer, it will see the wireless network.  When you try to connect, it will prompt you for the authentication code you designated on the unit.  It was very easy for all my computers except the one I used to configure the gateway.  What happened was that I had changed the authentication code in the gateway after I had connected to it wirelessly, so instead of being prompted to enter the new code or receiving a rejection method, I simply received a worthless Windows notice that it could not connect.  But after digging around in Control Panel and the Manage Networks option, I was able to delete the original profile so that received the needed challenge dialog for the new connection.

USAGE AND PERFORMANCE

I am very happy to say that I can now stream my favorite radio stations or videos or engage in chats or conversations without being dropped every few minutes like the Belkin N Wireless router did.  The power/range of the transmission does seem a little weaker than before, but I do recall a transmitter power designation setting in the router management interface that I think can be bumped up one more notch.

CONCLUSION

Though only time will tell how good of a product the 2Wire 2701HG-B Gateway is, for now it receives my preliminary thumbs-up.

Though I don’t eat a lot of red meat, when I do have it, I want it to be good – really good.  I always grill it.  And, I know what I am doing.  But you can do everything correctly, and if the meat is no good, nothing will help it.  Like lipstick on a pig, you know.

Unfortunately I have just been through a spate of bad meat experiences.  Here it is in a quick recap…

• Sirloin “fillets” from Whole Foods Market.  They looked great, but were very tough.
• Sirloin steaks at Sam’s Club.   Exceptionally tough.

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Although it got a good review at CNET, I have found this router to be less than fit for the job.  It seems to drop its connection intermittently, making it a pain in the neck to try to stream radio, video such as NetFlix, Skype phone conversations, and FTP.

Having done my Internet search, it seems that there are a lot of other people in the same boat.  I was excited when I first found this article on the Belkin website: http://www.belkin.com/support/article/?lid=en&pid=F5D7230-4&aid=2437&scid=0.  But having gone though most of the specific channels still did not fix the problem.

At this time, I am taking Belkin off my list of acceptable router products.

After checking Frys.com and some other sites, I found a decent deal on a Western Digital 1tb external hard drive from samsclub.com.  It was $124 plus $10 tax and around 6 bucks shipping.  It arrived in about 3 days via USPS.

Hooking it up was simple;  plug in the power supply; plug in the USB cable (USB 2.0).  There were about a third of a gig of installation and manufacturer files on the drive that I see no value in, so I archived them for a few months until I finally deem them useless and delete them.

My purpose for the drive is to…

1. Backup my family’s various computers using GoodSync backup program,
2. Backup my family’s photo collection,
3. Have adequate storage for the various video editing projects I am getting into.

There are a lot of sub-1tb externals out there, but I wanted to have at least 1tb to start with since more and more programs and technologies are promoting and using larger amounts of photos and video.  Mine is black, but I see that WD has a 2tb white one on their website.

I started logging this experience when I first received my Blockbuster On Demand wireless video download set top box, thinking it would be a very short article.  However, with all the headaches I have endured with installing and using the box, it is quite a bit longer that I had planned.  However, hopefully it will help someone else in their own experience.

Week of December 7th 2008

Was excited about ordering the 2Wire On Demand settop video download box from Blockbuster.  $100 buys the box and 25 prepaid movie rentals.  I was even more excited when it arrived a few days later.

Monday December 15, 2008: After receiving the box, logged into my account at Blockbuster.com and put my mail subscription on hold. Getting ready to hook up my new 2-Wire On Demand video box for my new Blockbuster Access download subscription. If things go well, it will forever change how videos are rented.

Wednesday December 16, 2008 : Messing around with starting to install my new Blockbuster 2Wire MediaPoint super duper video download rental box.  It keeps locking up.  Will try tomorrow.

Thursday December 18, 2008

• With my wireless printer off and my notebook disconnected from the network, rebooted the Blockbuster box and got it to connect.  But when it came time to register it on their website, blockbuster.com was taking downtime (for several hours).
• Got logged into Blockbuster.com, but I see nothing on the website prompting me for the PIN being displayed by the MediaPlayer on my TV.  This is a sign of poor user experience design.  Likely the reason I was not contacted by a recruiter in the past to work for Blockbuster is that BB did not want to spend the money to get a much-needed business analyst to work with their Information Architect (assuming they even had an IA).  I’m also irritated that the BB IVR requires me to push 1 to continue in English.  And the recorded wait message tells me that I can handle my business with them online; that’s the reason I’m even calling!
• Still on hold with Blockbuster customer service, I see a URL called blockbuster.com/settopbox in the poorly worded blurry text instructions on my ancient non-high-def TV.  I try the URL and get “SITE UNAVAILABLE” or an error with some numbers.  Customer Service Rep finally comes on and says she can do nothing to help me register my box and that I need to use the website.  When I explain that the website is erroring out, she says she knows and that they are doing some updates.  When I ask why they are updating their website in the middle of the day, she stammers and says she really does not know.  I politely refrain from telling her that the reason is because somebody screwed up somewhere in the requirements/design/coding/testing/deployment phase(s) of the SDLC and they are probably trying to back off a series of “enhancements” or fix them since they are taking hard downtime and people are going to NetFlix or MovieLink or somewhere besides Blockbuster at the moment.
• Finally got into the blockbuster.com web page to enter my PIN.  But it said that the PIN is now expired.  So I basically have to start over with setting up the set-top box.  With a 50 character network password, it is really becoming a pain in the posterior after 6 tries and counting.
• Finally got the blockbuster set top box setup.  Now I am trying to understand their business model just so I can be a customer to them.  Here is what I think I know and think I understand:

1. Rent videos in a store
2. Rent videos online and receive in the mail
3. Rent videos to download to your computer
4. Rent videos via your set top box

I just canceled number 2 above, and am seeing that the 4-some-odd movies in my online queue are not listed in my set-top Favorites.  Nor can anything I do online affect my set-top experience.  The “download rentals” on the website confused me by leading me to initially think they were discussing the settop download rentals; but not so!  And in BlockBuster’s poor user experience design, this is not explained.

So now I must manually search on the settop box for each and every movie I had already spent time putting in my online queue over many month’s time, and I must do it using a very cheap remote control and a very klunky onscreen menu.  The print on the buttons looks like it is already starting to wear off and I have not even downloaded a movie yet.  The menu and remote combine to allow primarily control using directional arrows and an OK button.  This can be a bit tedious for modern people – such as adults, teens, children, and seniors – who have ever used a keyboard or a PDA or even a telephone with letters on on the buttons.

As I relearn how to use this type of remote and menu, I now discover that many of the titles I had in my online rental queue are not available for settop rental – like Tropic Thunder which is coming soon, and The Bucket List which is not even found).

With the purchase of the box for $107 plus tax, you get 25 rentals.  That is 4 bucks a rental.   Then rentals vary in price from $1.99 and up (at least $3.99 for recent releases).  My wife is already telling me to ship the box back for a refund and take our online-by-mail rental off of hold for $12/mo unlimited rentals with 1 out at a time and free in-store exchange.  Though I love the idea of on-demand video rental, Blockbuster’s download model is more of “on-supply”.

Speaking as a software development professional who loves to see a job done right, I must say that I am less than impressed with Blockbuster today.

• Maybe Blockbuster is not so dumb after all.  They have retained me as a customer to do user acceptance testing, and are even getting me to pay them!
• Blockbuster emailed me confirmation of the ordering and shipping of my set top box.  So now I am confused yet again by Blockbuster…  Is that communique about the box I received 4 days ago, or did Blockbuster decide I was ordering another one when I logged in this morning to confirm my PIN to register my existing box?  I’ll have to visit my bank account to try to find out.

Wednesday December 31, 2008

Well, I am getting tired of blogging about the Blockbuster On Demand, and I am tired of the box itself.  So, I have called customer service to get an RA number (return authorization – required in order to return a product via mail).  After pressing 1 for English and waiting 12 minutes on hold, I was connected to a customer service rep (CSR) off shore in Europe or South America who then transferred me to an English first language CSR Stateside.

At first she tried to reason with me and talk me into keeping the box and trying to help me work out the bugs over the phone.  But she could probably hear the frustration in my voice and she wisely decided to issue the RA number.  I suspect there are quite a few others who have had similar customer experiences.

In short, here is a quick recap…

• Offering: 8gb solid state memory wireless/wired download box.  $100 + tax for the box and 25 prepaid rentals.
• Difficulty with the wireless connection.  My downloads (both of them) took over 4 hours each due to repeated broken connections.  Actually, the second one never completed but I was charged for it anyway and had to have the CSR credit my account.
• Klunky human interface and a cheap remote control with sticky buttons.  The security code is not hidden on the screen, and my kids could easily see what it is when I was trying to download their movie.
• Many expected titles (movies) not available for download, even though they have been out for years and can be rented online by mail – I mean that between 50% and 75% of the movies I had in my Blockbuster Rent-by-mail queue were not to be found for On Demand Download.
• Customer service has very limited call-in hours.  An offshore model adds complexity.  Online support is very limited.  On-screen support is nonexistent except for instructions to call in during business hours.
• Overall rating: “D-” by this customer.

My response: Return the box for a refund.  I was getting ready to reinstate my rent-by-mail membership, but then took a look at NexFlix.  At this time I think I will give NetFlix a try.

A sandwich shop started by firemen.  Pretty cool.  And not just sandwiches, but good sandwiches.  This is coming from a guy who is fairly picky and stays away from most sandwiches restaurants.

Since I live in Texas and am working in a small town in Arkansas, I was happy to find some familiarity in my dining options.  The Fire House Subs in Frisco, Texas made tasty subs, so why not the one in Bentonville? (more…)

I am excited about a recently launched website where you can get real-time traffic conditions.  It is called www.TrafficReport.com (imagine that).

Also, you can check gas prices, and even the weather, all on the same website.  Check it out and tell us what you think.

Sitting next to me is my $4,000 Dell notebook (called a laptop by many) that I can hardly tolerate. Yet I am loving the $499 Dell notebook that I am typing on.

Q: What’s the difference between the two – other than $3,500?.
A: 9 years, tons more power and storage, less weight, and more usability, that’s what!
A couple of months ago I ordered a Dell Vostro 200 desktop computer. The price was good for the functionality, and I was able to get a 19″ flat panel LCD monitor and a decent little speaker system inexpensively. Plus, Dell’s unconditional 30 day return policy assuaged my fears a little. But then I remembered the pains of my past with Dell (see my previous article). “We’ll see”, I said.

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A few years ago I purchased a Dell Dimension desktop computer online (and by phone; because Dell has primarily a virtual sales model versus retail stores). Just about every one of my phone calls with questions landed in a foreign country where English was a second or third language – Argentina, Brazil, and not surprisingly India. Besides the language barrier, there was also the customer service gap. These people were reading a script and process flows, versus truly understanding the business needs of the Dell customer.

I bought the computer anyway, but had buyer’s remorse when I had to call in for basic support and got routed around the globe when trying to reach a decision-making supervisor in the US. Here is a little hint: call in the morning if you can. In my experience, you have a better chance of reaching someone stateside in the am. Also, if you contact someone in sales, they might be able to help you.

Again, I have no problem dealing with foreign customer service people if they can help and are empowered to help and want to help and understand how to help. Otherwise, like so many other Americans, “just let me talk to an American who speaks English – or better yet, American.” I think Dell might be starting to see the light.

Once the number 1 seller of computers, Dell is now in the number 2 slot (and there is a reason for that). Founder and CEO Michael Dell now says that number 2 is not good enough. It is a little late in the game, but not too late.

Another case of Dell buyer’s remorse was that even after my own purchase, I recommended that my mother-in-law purchase a Dell. Unfortunately, she went through even more headaches than I did due to issues around a faulty CD player; years worth of headaches and run around with customer service. But, ultimately Dell accommodated her by rebuilding her machine and replacing the faulty components. Just about too little too late. But not quite.

Be sure to check out my next article on How Dell Computer Is Winning Customers Back.

We don’t do a whole lot of mailing via the US Postal Service anymore, but when we need to, those old nightmarish images come back to mind: standing in an interminable line waiting to deal with someone who does not like their job – or worse yet, someone who loves their job because they think they are hired to neglect and abuse the taxpayers. Well, the other day my wife needed to mail some clothing to a friend. We have a very busy household, and even the simplest of activities can take too much precious time. However…

…Instead of dreading a trip to the post office to stand in line to ship a package, I told her to do it online. Just a short trip to the USPS website.

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