Obi 100 going offline.

[drgeoff]

@OE
Read my post above and show me where I said that Obihai published the link.

And the original thrust of this thread was an OBi100.

Post I referred to: https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=9910.msg65613#msg65613 by Taoman.

[OzarkEdge]

... I assume ...

And we all know what assuming does.

Here's the actual quote, worth repeating:

"I assume that Obihai intends to not publish future firmware releases for manual download/installation... you'll have to use the OBiTALK web portal after you pay up for extended support... otherwise, what's the point of it all?"

assuming - used for the purpose of argument to indicate a premise on which a statement can be based.

Assuming is not guessing.  Plenty of supporting facts have been reported here.  OBiTALK.com is charging annually for Extended Support to permit configuring and updating your OBi, albeit in a buggy half-hearted sort of way.  No FUD about it.  Consider it announced.  Be disappointed... be pleased... be resigned... be anything but naïve.

OE

[OzarkEdge]

@OE
Read my post above and show me where I said that Obihai published the link.

And the original thrust of this thread was an OBi100.

Post I referred to: https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=9910.msg65613#msg65613 by Taoman.

My point is that Obihai has NOT published firmware for manual download in some time, and not since requiring users to pay for Extended Support.  If you do not appreciate what this means to the average OBiTALK.com user who is unaware of secret firmware urls that may soon stop working anyway once they finish baking their portal billing scheme, then I can not explain it any further to you.

OE

[RFC3261]

Assuming is not guessing.

Call your statements what you want.  Unless you are an employee of Obihai any statements regarding their future business models or restrictions are still just assumptions, guesses. conjecture, pontification and/or FUD.  No matter how loudly or repeatedly you assert your statements does not change the fact that you do not know the future plans.  As you have already explicitly stated.  So I actually think we are in violent agreement, your posts are worth every penny I paid for them.  However, I have decided that I no longer have a need for them.  Can you issue an RMA so I can return them?

[drgeoff]

@OE
Read my post above and show me where I said that Obihai published the link.

And the original thrust of this thread was an OBi100.

Post I referred to: https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=9910.msg65613#msg65613 by Taoman.

My point is that Obihai has NOT published firmware for manual download in some time, and not since requiring users to pay for Extended Support.  If you do not appreciate what this means to the average OBiTALK.com user who is unaware of secret firmware urls that may soon stop working anyway once they finish baking their portal billing scheme, then I can not explain it any further to you.

OE

My point was that what you stated was untrue.

"you can't upgrade firmware unless you buy an extended support plan"

Agreed that dowloading and manually updating firmware may be difficult or outside the realms of the average user or may not be possible at some future time. However the blanket claim you made was not true at the time you made it. And despite anything you have written in the meantime it is still untrue as I type this.

[OzarkEdge]

My point was that what you stated was untrue.

"you can't upgrade firmware unless you buy an extended support plan"

Agreed that dowloading and manually updating firmware may be difficult or outside the realms of the average user or may not be possible at some future time. However the blanket claim you made was not true at the time you made it. And despite anything you have written in the meantime it is still untrue as I type this.

If you use OBiTALK.com and it alerts "you can't upgrade firmware unless you buy an extended support plan" and you don't go searching forum messages for the secret firmware urls; then you have no choice but to pay for the upgrade via Extended Support.

I'm debating fair and proper process while you want to argue that anyone can go find unpublished firmware to solve this problem.  You say upgrades are still free for the clever users; Obihai says it wants everyone's $10... otherwise OBiTALK.com would just get on with upgrading your device.

Incidentally, I can't think of any hardware OEMs that charge for firmware... PCs, PC peripherals, routers, atas, etc... you just go to their Support page and download the latest firmware, no charge, no monkeying around.

OE

[Taoman]

My point was that what you stated was untrue.

"you can't upgrade firmware unless you buy an extended support plan"

Agreed that dowloading and manually updating firmware may be difficult or outside the realms of the average user or may not be possible at some future time. However the blanket claim you made was not true at the time you made it. And despite anything you have written in the meantime it is still untrue as I type this.

While your statement is technically true, in the context in which OE made the statement I feel it is accurate. We have no idea how many OBi users have encountered that new screen on the Obitalk web portal and just blindly paid up because they were clueless about manually downloading/updating firmware. Wouldn't you agree for those people OE's statement is true?

And it sure appears that Obihai thinks it's true:

I did reach out to Obihai, and got this response from them:

-------------------------------
This device is out of warranty and does not have an Extended Support on it.
To continue using Google Voice with the OBi, you will need to purchase a
Support contract to enable firmware upgrades.
To purchase it, please log into your OBitalk.com account and click on your
dashboard.
Further click on your device, and go to Support and Warranty tab.
-------------------------------

[SteveInWA]

Y'all can debate the semantics all you want, and you are free to complain about confusing documentation and/or the resulting decisions to pay for extended support.

Fact:  the Warranty Status section for an out-of-warranty device says this:

Description: Receive premium technical support via email and phone, from Obihai's Help Desk experts even when your OBi device is not covered by a hardware Warranty.

Fact:  the Warranty Status section for an in-warranty device says this:

Description: Extend your OBi device's warranty to a second full-year and receive premium technical support via email and phone, from Obihai's Help Desk experts.

True, Obihai has done a crummy job explaining what you are or are not entitled to receive, support-wise, on an out of warranty device, but that doesn't add up to malicious intent.  Many companies offer extended support for a fee, with self-service via forums and downloads being the alternative.  The company didn't promise, as no for-profit company would, eternal free support.  In this case, buying the extended warranty provides the services specifically included in that warranty.  You're free to read the warranty if you wish --that's your responsibility

you don't go searching forum messages for the secret firmware urls; then you have no choice but to pay for the upgrade via Extended Support.

This is just forum trolling.  Obihai has not hidden or made difficult the task of finding the proper firmware; it's right there on the firmware download section of this forum.

People on the Internet love to bash companies and find nefarious motives for corporate behavior.  Thirty years ago, it was IBM-bashing, then Microsoft-bashing, then Facebook and Google-bashing.

It's just irrelevant to actually solving the problem.  Empirical evidence trumps speculation.  I have a OBi 110, two 200s, a 202 and a 1302.  The 110, the 202 and one of the 200s are out of warranty (in fact, the 110 is one of the original-version products dating back to the earliest days of the company).  I have tested and proven that, as long as a device is at the current firmware level, it can be added to the OBiTALK portal, and Google Voice can be configured on it.  There is no need to downgrade the firmware, nor pay any fee.

[Rulo]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my posting and the help and suggestions provided. The reason I asked for help in the first place was because a family member is going overseas and I wanted to use the Obi to Obi talk to communicate for free. But if this keeps taking my Obi offline I may need to try something else. I will try to switch the Obi Talk service on the Obi to see if stays reliable connected.
I think that Obi should take care of the issue and see why the systems are falling off line.

[drgeoff]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my posting and the help and suggestions provided. The reason I asked for help in the first place was because a family member is going overseas and I wanted to use the Obi to Obi talk to communicate for free. But if this keeps taking my Obi offline I may need to try something else. I will try to switch the Obi Talk service on the Obi to see if stays reliable connected.
I think that Obi should take care of the issue and see why the systems are falling off line.

I've had an OBi110 running for more than two years with 2 SIP providers and 'Obitalk Voice' enabled. No problems with going off-line very infrequently which could not be attributed to obvious causes.  Granted neither of those providers is voip.ms but it is hard to come up with a plausible reason why voip.ms plus Obitalk would form a killer combination whereas other SIP ITSPs plus Obitalk do not. Given that 'Obitalk Voice' is enabled by default, a sizeable number, if not the majority, of OBi ATAs are running with it enabled. How many threads have we seen with problems that were cured by disabling 'Obitalk Voice'?