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Reply To: Why You Can Stick To iEnsemble! Gateway

#21700
iEnsemble victim
Guest

Hello Kang Zeng,

Do you have some form of agreement with Flashline to say all this?

This is the same wording Vive used to advertise the iEnsembles. Very ambitious features, they ALMOST implemented them.

BUT!

1) Configurable FXS/FXO interface from the web? Sure, but you have to reset the iEnsemble after such a change. Soft resets aren’t reliable in the iEnsembles. You have to do a hard reset. What’s the use of a remote way to change the ports when you have to be next to the iEnsemble to reset it manually?

2) The scripting is a good feature. Allows for flexible operating mode. This is also a major point of failure. It is so complicated that you can easily make a mistake. You have to change many settings to bring the iEnsemble back to normal operation (including unpluggin it for 5 minutes perhaps). Also, there is the chance that the iEnsemble will not work properly after a script compilation and you have to reset it manualy. So, you have to be there, next to it. Where is the remote administration now?

3) Billing platform VERY limited. Have you tried importing rates for many destinations? It simply doesn’t work. It doesn’t have a proper way to view in details the messages that are exchanged between the iEnsemble and the billing PC. The interface to view the messages is cumbersome and laughable! Was it programmed on Windows 3.1???

5) Also, in order to have proper billing the iEnsemble must be able to properly detect ansering & hanging up on IP and FXO ports… This is a major problem causing wrong billing.

6) The lack of proper documentation is crippling. What is the use of debug operation mode in the iEnsemble if you can’t understand the messages you see on the screen because they are not included in the documentation?

6) The T.38 fax option created many problems that were not present when the fax mode was transparent. So, in effect, the T.38 mode is non-existant.

7) I don’t have personal experience from the Show & tell features, but there are reviews on the web saying that installation on the web server side was difficult and the reviewers had to ask for help from Vive. They said that there were no detailed or correct(?) instructions.

8) You say that most important is that they plan on releasing new firmware to correct the past problems. You probably don’t know that the old clients of Vive have to PAY for support from Flashline in order to get the firmware. So, what’s the good news in this?

In my opinion, the MOST IMPORTANT is that we were tricked into buying crappy equipment that promised a lot of features, but few of them were working properly.

Now since you probably work for Vive/Flashline, please relay to your managers these words.

Cheers.