I'm not Impressed with Netgear support, i.e. lack of it. 90 days duration is about as poor as it gets in any business. Nor am I impressed with the forum. There's a serious lack of answers. Netgear will do anything to avoid contact with a customer; sadly not uncommon these days but this is the worst of the worst.
I wish companies offered more than 90 days of free support. Problem is the low margins on electronics. And with personel being one of the largest cost of business, if you offered more than a certain support period, you wouldn't make any $ on electronics.
Difference with networking gear is that many aren't very capable with networking gear and networking gear is becoming an very important of peoples daily lives. They'd constantly be using support for solving problems that are in the manual, in the education articles, or aren't related to their device at all. You know how many answers could have been solved by a quick look at a manual or a quick search on the community? Agreed that not all can be solved this route but at a certain point a company can only pay for so much support. 90 days allows people to get their device, get it up and running, and figure out the initial configuration and troubleshooting. They can't constantly be expecting a company to provide IT for them.
Its fine to not be impressed with the support forum. its members of the public helping others out. We don't always have time to respond as we're not paid for this. Or we get involved with something and forget something had a response. Its a hobby. Not a job. Some of the people who post on here are straight up rude or don't give us the info we need to help them. We have to fight to try to get details that are important. Why would I help them when I'd rather help someone who's willing to do their part or who's halfway nice?
