Monday, December 14, 2009
3 make it difficult to buy products
Having destroyed my Huawei D100 3G Wireless Router I attempted to buy another one from 3. This has proved very difficult. I had assumed as I knew exactly the product I wanted and was to buy it from the same company as the previous unit, this would be easy. I imagined just waling in and saying "please sell me another one of these". The store I asked at had none and could not check with other 3 stores, as different types of stores are on different stock systems. I tried calling 3 but only their national number is listed on their web site and I then had to get through a voice response system which assumed I wanted a phone or Internet service. The operator I eventually talked to had never heard of "Canberra". I had to explain it was in the "Australian Capital Territory" which was abbreviated to "ACT". Theythen connected me to a phone line which did not answer. It looks like I have to visit each 3 Stiore and ask for the product.
Seems like that sort of lack of customer service would discourage you from giving them your hard-earned money. (Back when I worked retail -- pre-networked DBs -- we'd **phone around** to the different stores, **for the customer**...!)
ReplyDeleteAny reason you need to stay with that particular router -- rather than something more ''off-the-shelf''? :)
--GG
Blogger Gye Greene said December 14, 2009 9:13 PM:
ReplyDelete>Any reason you need to stay with that particular router...
Yes, the router needs to support 3G wireless data access, either directly, or via the HUAWEI E169 wireless USB modem I have. There are only a few routers that do that. Also the HUAWEI D100 is much smaller than the average model, making it more portable. An alternative is a truly portable device, such as the Huawei E5832 wireless modem, which has the router built in. But this does not have Ethernet and seems hard to configure without Windows (I use Linux).
I finally got through to a 3 Store in Canberra by phone and the helpful people told me they had the Huawei D100 3G Wireless Router in stock, both in white and black.
ReplyDeleteEven after contacting the store, finding it was not easy. I went to the 3 outlet on level 2 of Westfield Belconnen, waited in the pre-Christmas queue, only to be told they were not a 3 Store and did not sell the routers. The 3 Store is on the top floor near the cinemas. When I finally found the store there was no waiting and a quick sale.
The router worked fine, after changing the APN to "VirginBroadband" and the Authentication protocol to "PAP".