"I had an experience with 3Com's tech support recently that has motivated me to never buy another 3Com product ever again," the reader wrote. "We had a pair of 3Com Wireless Bridges connecting two buildings slightly less than a half a mile apart. One of them was stolen off of the roof so we had to buy a replacement. After I installed the replacement it wouldn't work so I called 3Com's tech support. The date the new unit was manufactured was six months ago. Because their warranty is only 90 days I had to fax them the packing slip as proof that I hadn't had the wireless bridge for over 90 days. The first time I faxed it to them it got lost in their system so when I called them back I had to fax it over again before I could get tech support on a brand new product."

The reader's troubles were just beginning. "After I finally convinced 3Com that this was a brand new product and that it was covered under their 90-day warranty, I got to talk to someone from tech support who told me that their wireless building to building bridge is not supported where the two bridges aren't level with each other," the reader wrote. "If one bridge is 50 feet or so higher than the other one, which is my situation because of geography, they won't promise that it will work because it isn't designed to work that way. After talking with tech support I took the new bridge down and tried to use it face to face with the other one and found out that it was defective out of the box. I called tech support back -- taking the bridge down and driving to the other building took almost 45 minutes -- and they told me that they are going to replace the defective bridge and they transferred me to their RMA department."

Of course, before 3Com's RMA department would issue the replacement, the reader was required yet again to fax another copy of the packing slip to prove the defective bridge was brand new. "After I did that they told me that they'd try to get me the replacement the next day, but that they couldn't guarantee it," the reader wrote. "I pushed the gentleman on the phone and he said that they would make a 'best effort' to replace the expensive DOA product in one day but that he couldn't promise that they would replace it the next day."

The replacement bridge did arrive and I gather it is now functional. Increasing the reader's frustration throughout the ordeal was another communication problem. "I was told to register the bridge on 3Com's website three or four times by different people, and every time I told them that since I use a Macintosh I can't register it on line," the reader wrote. "Their website is designed so poorly that it won't allow a Macintosh user to register a brand new product there -- it won't allow a Linux user to register a product either."