Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US
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@jmoore said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
Was looking at the specs on their website and they look pretty nice. Price on amazon seems really good. actually so good it makes me wonder why...
because it's unofficial and specifically banned for support. So if the device is DOA, that's on you. If you need firmware updates, they might not provide them. If anything is wrong, too bad. They specifically talk about how they don't want competitive pricing in the US so they have policies about not supporting any customer who gets a low price on the product.
It's really bad businesses practices and the kind of thing that makes you question doing business with them. Sure, they claim that they won't enforce that stuff and will support you anyway. But that's just one guy, but their legal team has gone through tons of effort to make sure you don't get support and that Americans are turned away.
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@Jason-Liu said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
@scottalanmiller
$68 on Amazon is not an unofficial quotation from the authorized online shop, I suggest to buy from an authorized online shop, we only provide support and service to the authorized online shop.You can see here. Support and service only to authorized shops. But we can't find any authorized online shops. And Fanvil won't provide a list. So there's no way to know for sure, I guess.
But we do know that authorized shops aren't allowed to publish any competitive prices. So if a price is good, you know it has no support. But if a price is bad, good luck, your guess is as good as anyone else's.
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By the way, I checked with Fanvil and Insight is NOT authorized.
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https://www.fanvil.com/Partners/searchReseller.html
Check that site. From what I can tell, there is no reseller available for the US market. None. They've not even entered the market yet.
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I reached out to someone else at Fanvil North America and expressed the frustration. What drives me most crazy is Fanvil themselves, or Fanvil by asking agents, to reach out and try to convince us to buy the phones. But still never providing a path to do so. It's insane.
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Yeah with all of that it seems it isn't worth it. I guess for a one off its fine to try to see how they work and the quality, but buying many won't be an option because you will never know if they will get support or updates.
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@jmoore said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
Yeah with all of that it seems it isn't worth it. I guess for a one off its fine to try to see how they work and the quality, but buying many won't be an option because you will never know if they will get support or updates.
Right. If I don't care about support and just want to test it out, I'm sure everything is great. But putting these in a customer site and telling them to "trust me" just feels like a bad idea.
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@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
@jmoore said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
Yeah with all of that it seems it isn't worth it. I guess for a one off its fine to try to see how they work and the quality, but buying many won't be an option because you will never know if they will get support or updates.
Right. If I don't care about support and just want to test it out, I'm sure everything is great. But putting these in a customer site and telling them to "trust me" just feels like a bad idea.
Yes i agree
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The suspicion is that they are focused very, very heavily on the reseller market (like SonicWall, Merkai, etc.) The problem there is, without a big name behind you, they can't get the momentum to have people do that. And end users or IT won't consider them because the prices are absurd for an unheard of company with no support.
It's a standard model, but not one that I can foresee working in their case.
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@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US:
@Jason-Liu said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
and we will also list authorized online resellers on Fanvil website soon.
In @Jason-Liu's now deleted post, this quoted bit will at least help. They plan to provide a list.
Over a year later, and no list, and nothing available via search. Searched known places listing the product, couldn't get any to come up. Talked to Insight today, they offer it, but are unauthorized. So it's available, but only without support.
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So I got someone from Fanvil to reach out and they said that VoIP Supply in Buffalo is authorized as a distributor. But the Fanvil website says that they are not authorized as a reseller. So... who knows what that means. To be an authorized reseller you have to both buy from an authorized distributor and be authorized as a reseller. Fanvil is disputing VS' rights on the latter. So while there appear to be two actual distributors now, there still appears to be literally zero resellers that are officially authorized. So support will always be "best of luck to you." No one is required to support anything if they don't feel like it. Caveat emptor.
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@Jason-Liu said in Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US:
@scottalanmiller
$68 on Amazon is not an unofficial quotation from the authorized online shop, I suggest to buy from an authorized online shop, we only provide support and service to the authorized online shop.So I spoke at length with Fanvil North America about this yesterday and what they said was that this was misinformation caused by an old document that had not been fixed that did say that, but wasn't supposed to. It was a misunderstanding in translation as to how the term "reseller" is used in this market.
The mistaken document is being looked at right now and being addressed. But you can buy Fanvil now and get support in the US.
Also, a third official distributor, but this one with their own reseller store as well, now has them: voipsupply in Buffalo. So you can get them directly from them if you want. Or on Amazon. Or call your fav reseller and ask them to get them, or whatever. Still not easy to find, but I'm talking to Insight, for example, to see if we can't get them able to carry them.
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@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US:
Fanvil MAP (minimum advertised price) policy
http://fanvil.com/Partners/aboutmap.htmlThis is the page that we dug into yesterday and are getting addressed.
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@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US:
and NTS (who has dropped their page for the product) again.
After I told Fanvil that NTS had removed their product page, it was "magically" restored prior to our phone conversation, lol.
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@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US:
@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US:
and NTS (who has dropped their page for the product) again.
After I told Fanvil that NTS had removed their product page, it was "magically" restored prior to our phone conversation, lol.
Oh thats ironic isn't it.
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I know prices are good but this doesn't seem worth the trouble if you were a business.
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@jmoore said in Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US:
I know prices are good but this doesn't seem worth the trouble if you were a business.
Actually, Fanvil is one of very few companies that make a phone with a bazillion individual BLF keys.
It is something that a lot of folks coming from legacy key systems always seem to hang up on.
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Looking at their main website today, I do not see the phone they used to have. but the new one with the built in side car is a better option of the same knid of thing.
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@JaredBusch I love that they built the sidecar in. I've only seen separate ones before. That looks really nice. Be nice to have one to see what kind of build quality it has and of course how reliable it worked.
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@JaredBusch said in Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US:
@jmoore said in Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US:
I know prices are good but this doesn't seem worth the trouble if you were a business.
Actually, Fanvil is one of very few companies that make a phone with a bazillion individual BLF keys.
It is something that a lot of folks coming from legacy key systems always seem to hang up on.
And they seem to have one of the broadest overall phone ranges. Handsetless models, door models, intercom models, paging consoles...
