Linksys CIT400, A New Beginning

Ok, I lied. I didn't return my CIT400 when I said I was going to. I kept it. Why? Well, because, uhm, because when I had the base station hidden under the bookshelf next to the cat litter box, it actually worked.

Not only did I keep it and continue to use it, but I've also kept after the support people, to try to get some answers from them - I think of it as a secret mission. Some travel the world proselytizing, I spend my time trying to get Linksys to understand what's wrong with their phone. And let me tell you, it hasn't been easy.

I found a guy in support (I'll call him Burt) who's pretty good, but seems to have a short attention span. We were making progress - he understood the problem, we'd moved beyond the busy signal, and then he took a couple of days off. Mistake.. Big mistake. The first thing he did when he came back was to suggest I register the handset with the base station.. Doh! Burt, if I needed to register it, would I have been able to make the calls? Nope..

Then Burt suggested I talk with their second level technical support. Woohoo! Someone who knows more about the phone than they're read in the manual. We set up a call for 9:00AM Monday - bright and early, I wanted to start my week off on a high note.

Alas, their second level support people might be skilled in IP phone technology, but they're not skilled in telling time. They called at 9:15AM Thursday - yes, that's right, they were 72 hours and 15 minutes late in calling. Along the way they said "sorry, miscommunication" and then "sorry, phone was busy" (hint: I have voicemail from my local phone carrier, so it can't be busy), then "the insurgence was stronger than we expected."

Anyway, we did talk. I want to characterize it as a waste, but it wasn't even that. It was 15 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. The second level support person said "it sounds to me like your phone is defective." Really? Well, it's good I got in touch with you, no one else suggested that.

I calmly explained that this was, in fact the third one I tried (I count the Netgear phone in the lot - it was the same phone, and failed in the same manner), all behaved the same way, so perhaps it was defective as she suggested, but if that was the case, then it was a design flaw (I confess, I'm not a statistician, but what are the odds of three out of three phones being broken in exactly the same way).

She then.. Hung up on me. The nerve Or maybe she was using a Linksys Skype phone and got disconnected, that would be a trip, huh?

I sent Burt a note back telling him that she wasn't too helpful (tattling on her really), and suggesting that perhaps we could resolve this if they would send me a known working CIT400 and a wireless access point. So far, they've decided to try to recreate the problem in their lab, without my help (their loss, I think)..

In the mean time, I was sitting in my living room wondering what sort of inept people they had working there, and I happened to look out my window at the cellular antennas mounted on the building across the street.. Duh! What a fool I've been. My phone is 1.9GHz, cellular networks include 1.9GHz. Maybe that's the problem...