ChrisB
Active Member
The "new, improved" all revamped Marconi router (dubbed... I dunno, "super combo" or "premium plus" or something else highly original) is EVEN WORSE than the original piece of cr@p they foisted on customers in the beginning.
I have had the unenviable task of trying to get both types working in the past couple of years. Every one I've worked with has given a different problem. Marconi's "help" line either doesn't answer the phone (yip, a toll-free line that isn't answered, and a completely couldn't-care attitude when I asked why not) or can't help.
I eventually replaced one original 4-port Marconi because no matter what I did it wouldn't port-forward incoming VPN connections (does SMTP fine, though) with an old Netgear which works beautifully and needs resetting *much* less often. I had to replace another one which just sommer stopped doing DHCP. There have been others with other stupid hassles... And yesterday I battled all day with one of the new ones which won't save the ADSL user name/password - eventually taking it to Telkom for swapout (and of course going home disappointed because their system wasn't up to date - but that's another story).
And if you thought the old router's user interface was stupid, and the need for rebooting at every setting change was irritating, try the new one. On a Netgear, from the home page ONE CLICK gets you to the settings page and once you have entered your username/password that's it. Oh, boy - not on the SooperDooper (or should that be PooperScooper) - I think someone got a PhD in "counter-intuition and obfuscation in graphical user interfaces" while designing this menu system. And if you get lost, try the "help" - that brings up the very useful text
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insert help page here
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All in all, a huge ripoff. I have no idea what Telkom is charging for these things, but the money saved IS NOT WORTH the frustration and time taken trying to sort out the technical hitches. I can only assume they got them real cheap - like, R100 apiece - because they are JUNK. At every opportunity, I urge customers to buy a decent ADSL router - and by that I mean virtually anything except Marconi - because, even if they have to pay extra for a lighting arrester to go with it, it's still worth it to avoid Telkom's rubbish and K@K ATTITUDE.
I have had the unenviable task of trying to get both types working in the past couple of years. Every one I've worked with has given a different problem. Marconi's "help" line either doesn't answer the phone (yip, a toll-free line that isn't answered, and a completely couldn't-care attitude when I asked why not) or can't help.
I eventually replaced one original 4-port Marconi because no matter what I did it wouldn't port-forward incoming VPN connections (does SMTP fine, though) with an old Netgear which works beautifully and needs resetting *much* less often. I had to replace another one which just sommer stopped doing DHCP. There have been others with other stupid hassles... And yesterday I battled all day with one of the new ones which won't save the ADSL user name/password - eventually taking it to Telkom for swapout (and of course going home disappointed because their system wasn't up to date - but that's another story).
And if you thought the old router's user interface was stupid, and the need for rebooting at every setting change was irritating, try the new one. On a Netgear, from the home page ONE CLICK gets you to the settings page and once you have entered your username/password that's it. Oh, boy - not on the SooperDooper (or should that be PooperScooper) - I think someone got a PhD in "counter-intuition and obfuscation in graphical user interfaces" while designing this menu system. And if you get lost, try the "help" - that brings up the very useful text
----------
insert help page here
----------
All in all, a huge ripoff. I have no idea what Telkom is charging for these things, but the money saved IS NOT WORTH the frustration and time taken trying to sort out the technical hitches. I can only assume they got them real cheap - like, R100 apiece - because they are JUNK. At every opportunity, I urge customers to buy a decent ADSL router - and by that I mean virtually anything except Marconi - because, even if they have to pay extra for a lighting arrester to go with it, it's still worth it to avoid Telkom's rubbish and K@K ATTITUDE.
. The worst router I set up was the SMC. Had download the new firmware from the net before it would sync on telkom... 1024 was the lowest speed it could do before upgrading..... err downgrading