Re: DSC phone line technical support is terrible

[mleuck <m.leuck@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday, May 10, 2012 1:28:44 PM UTC-5, Jim wrote:

> I have never used DSC all through the years. Occasionally, when I run acr=
oss their equipment I usually pull it out and replace but I do have a few t=
hat I've continued to service. The first thing I notice about their equipme=
nt is that it is "flimsey" Thin metal, soft plastic, "cardboard" PCB's, com=
ponents "look" cheap, etc, which translate to me as .... well ....."cheap".=
 It's not that their products don't work .... it's just ..... cheap.=20

It's a circuit board, it doesn't have to do anything other than what it is =
designed for, being "cheap" isn't going to change how long it lasts or how =
well it works in fact it's remarkable how much integration they have.=20

If you compare it to Napco's circuit boards you see something overbuilt wit=
h tons of discrete components, every one of those resistors, diodes and cap=
acitors you see on a Napco board have to be hand soldered which adds to the=
 cost and are one more point of failure. But hey it sure feels pretty solid=
 eh?

> Awhile ago, someone asked me to evaluate their cellular radio. Getting th=
rough to technical support and waiting were a problem but getting their tec=
hnical support people to give me answers to directly asked questions was ev=
en a problem. Me, having a very questioning mind, there were things that di=
dn't make sense to me about the fucntioning of the device. I'd say that, ..=
.. I had to call as many as twenty times and gradually "PULL" the answers t=
hat I needed, out of them. That is .... the answers could have been given t=
o me at any time during our conversations but I guess that it may have seem=
ed better to the people I was talking with, to not open up the can of worms=
 of providing me a reason to ask more questions ..... of THEM.=20

Most likely it was the way you asked the questions, next time don't swear a=
t them so much. It didn't take me 20 calls to figure out how their setup wo=
rks.

Compared to Alarm.com and Honeywell however they do fall short

> In addtion to all of this, the reason I had to call and ask questions in =
the first place was because the "manual" that came with the product was a c=
rookedly made photo copy of a hand typed and stapled 12 page manual that ha=
d little more than hookup instructions in it. They utimately had a recall o=
f the unit because it was doing periodic checkin's even though it wasn't ab=
le to transmit during an alarm. NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.=20

I'd be curious to know when this was and what product you were dealing with=
, the last time I've seen them photo copy a hand typed manual was in the ea=
rly 90's=20