How do I handle a supplier that delivered a faulty product?
Hello, We are a small FTTH provider and our main business is selling 1000/1000 internet. Our network is GPON based. We recently made the mistake of buying a large shipment of Zhone 2301 modems (ONU). We did test this device before purchase, but unfortunately we failed to notice a severe fault with the product. Soon after putting it into production we got many complaints from customers that the modem would crash daily. Turns out that the device can not handle download streams at or near 1000 Mbps. Especially if the download originates with a server that is 10G connected. GPON downstream is actually 2.4 Gbps. The modem has to deliver on an ordinary 1 Gbps ethernet port. This means the packets can arrive faster than the modem can hand it off on the ethernet side. And when that happens, it will simply crash. The vendor then told us to limit download speed to 750 Mbps with a small buffer of 50 KB. Any faster and the modem can crash amongst other issues. When I told them I do not think I can sell 1000/1000 Mbps internet if I limit the modems to 750 Mbps, as that would be false advertising, I was simply told that the 2301 is a low cost solution, so deal with it. They are not going to work more on fixing the issue. The website and the datasheet does not say anything that would warn you that this product can only handle 750 Mbps: http://www.zhone.com/products/ZNID-GPON-2301/ZNID-GPON-2301.pdf So what do I do now? I am thinking Zhone needs to resolve this in a satisfactory way, which is to either return my money or switch the product to something, that actually delivers what was promised. We have some of their 24xx series and that works perfectly well. So we know it is just the 2301 that is bad. Unfortunately we are apparently to small a customer to them. As this is an USA supplier, will suing them help me any? Yes I know, don't ask for legal advice on a mailing list, and I am not - I just want to know some opinions if that is even worth considering. Or if I will just have to eat it and drive the whole shipment into the harbor. Regards, Baldur
Baldur Norddahl wrote:
Hello,
We are a small FTTH provider and our main business is selling 1000/1000 internet. Our network is GPON based.
We recently made the mistake of buying a large shipment of Zhone 2301 modems (ONU). We did test this device before purchase, but unfortunately we failed to notice a severe fault with the product. Soon after putting it into production we got many complaints from customers that the modem would crash daily.
Turns out that the device can not handle download streams at or near 1000 Mbps. Especially if the download originates with a server that is 10G connected.
GPON downstream is actually 2.4 Gbps. The modem has to deliver on an ordinary 1 Gbps ethernet port. This means the packets can arrive faster than the modem can hand it off on the ethernet side. And when that happens, it will simply crash.
The vendor then told us to limit download speed to 750 Mbps with a small buffer of 50 KB. Any faster and the modem can crash amongst other issues.
When I told them I do not think I can sell 1000/1000 Mbps internet if I limit the modems to 750 Mbps, as that would be false advertising, I was simply told that the 2301 is a low cost solution, so deal with it. They are not going to work more on fixing the issue.
The website and the datasheet does not say anything that would warn you that this product can only handle 750 Mbps: http://www.zhone.com/products/ZNID-GPON-2301/ZNID-GPON-2301.pdf
So what do I do now? I am thinking Zhone needs to resolve this in a satisfactory way, which is to either return my money or switch the product to something, that actually delivers what was promised. We have some of their 24xx series and that works perfectly well. So we know it is just the 2301 that is bad. Unfortunately we are apparently to small a customer to them.
As this is an USA supplier, will suing them help me any? Yes I know, don't ask for legal advice on a mailing list, and I am not - I just want to know some opinions if that is even worth considering. Or if I will just have to eat it and drive the whole shipment into the harbor.
If it doesn't deliver to spec, that certainly seems like a warranty claim, followed by a lawsuit (yes - talk to a lawyer). Also, define "large shipment" and total dollars involved. You might be able to take them to small claims court (much simpler process, but generally for $10,000 or under). Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
On Tue, 25 Nov 2014, Miles Fidelman wrote:
If it doesn't deliver to spec, that certainly seems like a warranty claim, followed by a lawsuit (yes - talk to a lawyer).
Also, define "large shipment" and total dollars involved. You might be able to take them to small claims court (much simpler process, but generally for $10,000 or under).
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV. Don't be afraid to march this up the chain at Zhone, if you're dealing with a salescritter. You might be able to get better responses from VPs or CxOs. Keep the lawsuit option in your back pocket if you need it. Many companies don't want the PR black eye that comes with a customer filing suit against them, so the threat of beating them with a stick can be just as effective actually carrying out that threat. If you have a lawyer on retainer already, maybe have them on the phone with you when you speak to the CxO at Zhone. If their product is advertised as providing a service that it can't/won't actually provide, whether it's positioned as a low-cost product or not is irrelevant. If their data sheets make no mention of the limitations that have been found, that's more ammunition for the cannon. Before anyone comes back with something like "So if I buy an entry level car, but I expect it to perform like a high-end sports car, does that mean I can sue the entry-level car maker for false advertising when it doesn't perform like a high-end sports car?" No, it doesn't. There are reasonable expectations. Expecting an entry-level car to perform like a high-end sports car isn't reasonable. Expecting a GPON modem to be able to forward wire-speed gigabit Ethernet in this day and age is perfectly reasonable. jms
On 25/11/14 09:39, Justin M. Streiner wrote:
Before anyone comes back with something like "So if I buy an entry level car, but I expect it to perform like a high-end sports car, does that mean I can sue the entry-level car maker for false advertising when it doesn't perform like a high-end sports car?" No, it doesn't. There are reasonable expectations. Expecting an entry-level car to perform like a high-end sports car isn't reasonable. Expecting a GPON modem to be able to forward wire-speed gigabit Ethernet in this day and age is perfectly reasonable.
Actually, this situation is as if you bought a low-end car that claims it can go 60MPH just like a high-end sports car which also claims to go 60MPH. But when the low-end car fails to achieve 60MPH and in fact blows up when you try to reach that speed, you do have grounds to cry false advertising. According to the spec-sheet pointed to by the OP: "GPON Rx - Downstream data rate 2.488Gbps" So the fact that the device fails to survive much less achieve the claimed rate is, I would expect, false advertisement... especially when the manufacturer acknowledges the discrepancy and refuses to take measures to remedy the situation. At this point, the OP may be at risk to his customers as well so it would be really in his best interest to pursue this as far as possible which may include legal action. -- /*=================[ Jake Khuon <khuon@NEEBU.Net> ]=================+ | Packet Plumber, Network Engineers /| / [~ [~ |) | | -------- | | for Effective Bandwidth Utilisation / |/ [_ [_ |) |_| NETWORKS | +==================================================================*/
On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 8:12 PM, Jake Khuon <khuon@neebu.net> wrote:
Actually, this situation is as if you bought a low-end car that claims it can go 60MPH just like a high-end sports car which also claims to go 60MPH. But when the low-end car fails to achieve 60MPH and in fact blows up when you try to reach that speed, you do have grounds to cry false advertising.
If we're going to pick analogies, let's pick a good one. This is a car advertised to go 60 mph. But it turns out the car only goes 60 mph down hill... On a 1 degree incline it tops out at 45. And yeah, that's a lemon. If the vendor has not supplied a technically appropriate solution within a reasonable amount of time, they're in breach of the implied contract of fitness for purpose. Unless of course you -signed- a contract which says otherwise or their shrink-wrap contract has effect (only Virginia or Maryland). You may be entitled to more than a refund, such as any business losses from the failure of the product to perform as advertised, including lost customer good will and employee man hours. Baldur, I advise you to consult a lawyer. This is where a -letter- from your lawyer to their lawyer (no lawsuit just yet) will yield action. It'll make it clear to the folks on the business end that the technical end has let them (and you) down more seriously than the normal bug complaints. That letter won't cost you more than a couple hundred bucks. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> May I solve your unusual networking challenges?
At no point does that spec say a single thing about speed. The closest part I could find was "Upstream data rate 1.244Gbps", but I think it's pretty clear that that is the link speed, not the actual data rate. It's worth wringing them out over the issue, maybe you can shame them into taking the units back, but I don't think you will have much luck pinning them down legally on some nebulous belief that it would run at wire rate gigabit. Nick On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 8:34 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 8:12 PM, Jake Khuon <khuon@neebu.net> wrote:
Actually, this situation is as if you bought a low-end car that claims it can go 60MPH just like a high-end sports car which also claims to go 60MPH. But when the low-end car fails to achieve 60MPH and in fact blows up when you try to reach that speed, you do have grounds to cry false advertising.
If we're going to pick analogies, let's pick a good one. This is a car advertised to go 60 mph. But it turns out the car only goes 60 mph down hill... On a 1 degree incline it tops out at 45.
And yeah, that's a lemon. If the vendor has not supplied a technically appropriate solution within a reasonable amount of time, they're in breach of the implied contract of fitness for purpose. Unless of course you -signed- a contract which says otherwise or their shrink-wrap contract has effect (only Virginia or Maryland). You may be entitled to more than a refund, such as any business losses from the failure of the product to perform as advertised, including lost customer good will and employee man hours.
Baldur, I advise you to consult a lawyer. This is where a -letter- from your lawyer to their lawyer (no lawsuit just yet) will yield action. It'll make it clear to the folks on the business end that the technical end has let them (and you) down more seriously than the normal bug complaints. That letter won't cost you more than a couple hundred bucks.
Regards, Bill Herrin
-- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> May I solve your unusual networking challenges?
In message <CAE7MFiJOxo9ybYg4BE+F9qM7VNvV1iqfJYjS4H0k0d-JJBWoVQ@mail.gmail.com>, Nick B writes:
At no point does that spec say a single thing about speed. The closest part I could find was "Upstream data rate 1.244Gbps", but I think it's pretty clear that that is the link speed, not the actual data rate. It's worth wringing them out over the issue, maybe you can shame them into taking the units back, but I don't think you will have much luck pinning them down legally on some nebulous belief that it would run at wire rate gigabit. Nick
Any router/modem that *crashes* when the input rate exceeds the output rate is broken. A router/modem shouldn't crash regardless of the data input rate. It might drop packets but not crash. -- Mark Andrews, ISC 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: marka@isc.org
On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 12:22 AM, Doug Barton <dougb@dougbarton.us> wrote:
Maybe the bit-bucket got full?
Then the new packets should be dropped, but this seems like a potential vulnerability. What it seems like to me is that the bit-bucket is not size limited, and proceeds to overwrite other memory, quickly killing the OS.
On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 12:41 AM, Nick B <nick@pelagiris.org> wrote:
At no point does that spec say a single thing about speed. The closest part I could find was "Upstream data rate 1.244Gbps", but I think it's pretty clear that that is the link speed, not the actual data rate. It's worth wringing them out over the issue, maybe you can shame them into taking the units back, but I don't think you will have much luck pinning them down legally on some nebulous belief that it would run at wire rate gigabit.
Hi Nick, That's the beauty of the implied warranty of fitness for particular purpose. The seller doesn't have to give any specs at all. He just has to lead you to believe that the product is suitable for some purpose, such as providing gige to customers. Sometimes, even the fact that the seller was aware of the buyer's intended use and failed to warn him is enough. If it then proves unsuitable for that purpose for any reason, the seller is on the hook. IANAL and I think Baldur should consult one before taking any action, but unless Baldur's use obviously and significantly differed from Zhone's advertised intended use Baldur probably has a case. http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-315 Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/> May I solve your unusual networking challenges?
Hi, Zhone reversed their stance on this and put everything on finding a fix. Now we have a working firmware that moves data at line speed with no need to put limits on downloads. Everyone are happy now. The 2301 with new firmware is performing as expected and seems like a good product for our needs. Baldur
On Tue, 16 Dec 2014, Baldur Norddahl wrote:
Zhone reversed their stance on this and put everything on finding a fix. Now we have a working firmware that moves data at line speed with no need to put limits on downloads. Everyone are happy now. The 2301 with new firmware is performing as expected and seems like a good product for our needs.
Good to see they came around. I take it they did not elaborate on their sudden change of heart? jms
No, but I would say that they were afraid they might not be able to fix the problem and somebody in the sales organization misstepped. Our reseller went the extra mile for us and managed to escalate the issue all the way to the CTO level. Apparently it was not an easy problem to fix. The problem would be with the chipset. Our reseller found a competing product that used the same chipset, and they had the same problem. Only the competing product would be stable at 950 Mbps instead of the 750 Mbps we had on the Zhone product. We agreed with Zhone that if they could tune it to 950 Mbps, we could live with that as "good enough". But in the end they actually managed to fix it completely, so now the Zhone product is line speed and the competing product is not. Learning from this, I would recommend everyone considering a GPON product based on a new chipset, to test how it performs when downloading at line speed, especially if the source is a 10 Gbps enabled server. There is apparently a bad chipset out there, that requires careful tuning for it to perform to spec. Even if you are not selling gigabit, there are microbursts that could cause trouble. Our speedtests now looks like this: http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3962524900 - this is good as in reality the speedtest is what people are buying... Regards, Baldur On 16 December 2014 at 18:49, Justin M. Streiner <streiner@cluebyfour.org> wrote:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2014, Baldur Norddahl wrote:
Zhone reversed their stance on this and put everything on finding a fix.
Now we have a working firmware that moves data at line speed with no need to put limits on downloads. Everyone are happy now. The 2301 with new firmware is performing as expected and seems like a good product for our needs.
Good to see they came around. I take it they did not elaborate on their sudden change of heart?
jms
participants (9)
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Baldur Norddahl -
Doug Barton -
Jake Khuon -
Justin M. Streiner -
Mark Andrews -
Miles Fidelman -
Nick B -
Philip Dorr -
William Herrin