Fanvil Availability and Suport in the US
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@jmoore said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
@scottalanmiller So what's the current situation with Fanvil? Did anyone ever try them out?
We're still struggling to find anyone in the US who is authorized to sell them that Fanvil will accept as an authorized seller. Fanvil has no list and if you don't buy from Fanvil's list, the warranty is void. So the lack of list, and the requirement of the list, means that there is no legit way to buy them according to Fanvil. Fanvil has made a significant effort to keep their phones out of the US market.
That said, I know someone in Germany who likes them and is trying to get us information and is looking at this thread, lol, and is passing info to Fanvil Germany about the issues and why we can't make a purchase here.
I did speak with Insight and they have a good price on the new X6U. But will Fanvil recognize it for warranty? We have no idea. Fanvil won't tell us, it's all kept secret. So you are forced to buy, and find out only when something goes wrong.
But we will be tempted to try them out now that at least Insight is able to carry them. The price is quite good and the product is great from all the rumours that I hear.
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I modified my remote phone book script to work on them for someone on the FreePBX community.
He gave me temp remote access the the phone’s web GUI. Was my first time in one since they are not easy to buy with warranty.
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We can try them in other markets where we get no warranty anyway, however testing a new phone vendor in the third world isn't fun. So even though Yealink doesn't have official warranty support in most of those situations, at least we already know the product from the US and know that we can get firmware and how the phone works. If the Fanvil has any problem we don't know if it'll get firmware updates, how it will behave, etc. It's unlikely to have problems, but it's an additional risk and effort just to try out a new phone that doesn't really make sense.
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Exactly. I can easily buy one to play with and test. I don’t care about warranty in that scenario.
But why would I waste my time doing that for a device that my main market may not be able to easily get support?
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@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
Fanvil has no list and if you don't buy from Fanvil's list
Wait, what? lol
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@jmoore said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
Fanvil has no list and if you don't buy from Fanvil's list
Wait, what? lol
Right? This is the whole issue. Basically they refuse to let you buy in the US. They act like they want to sell here, but no matter where you try to buy, they point out that there is no support if you buy "unauthorized". When you ask how to buy "authorized" they reply with "you can't, hahaha". And it's an endless circle.
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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:
@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
Fanvil has no list and if you don't buy from Fanvil's list
Wait, what? lol
Right? This is the whole issue. Basically they refuse to let you buy in the US. They act like they want to sell here, but no matter where you try to buy, they point out that there is no support if you buy "unauthorized". When you ask how to buy "authorized" they reply with "you can't, hahaha". And it's an endless circle.
So can other regions get better service or am I missing something?
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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...
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@jmoore said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
@jmoore said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
@scottalanmiller said in Fanvil Opus Codec Support in X4G and X5S Phones:
Fanvil has no list and if you don't buy from Fanvil's list
Wait, what? lol
Right? This is the whole issue. Basically they refuse to let you buy in the US. They act like they want to sell here, but no matter where you try to buy, they point out that there is no support if you buy "unauthorized". When you ask how to buy "authorized" they reply with "you can't, hahaha". And it's an endless circle.
So can other regions get better service or am I missing something?
Yes, they appear to have functional distribution networks outside of 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.
