I recently received an email from a PEPLINK reseller stating:
1 month after expiry of PrimeCare on a device, PEPLINK will authorise the renewal. 2nd – 6th month from expiry will require diagnostic reports for authorisation from Peplink prior to renewal. After 6 months, the device will no longer be authorised for PrimeCare renewal.
Does this mean that if I do not renew primecare that after 6 months I can never use primecare (bonding via speedfusion hub and not cloud for example) even if I pay for it?
I had two devices lapse recently, one was within the 1st month and it let me renew no problem. One device that fell into the 2-6mo category and when I tried renewing it the webpage blocked it. I opened a ticket and submitted a diagnostic and then after they reviewed that and flipped a flag in the system I was able to renew Primecare.
Based on the way this reads, dont expect to be able to renew after 6month lapse.
Would be appreciated if someone affiliated with Peplink could document the underlying rationale for this policy so we can better appreciate what is in play here.
A PrimeCare device can just be renewed with PrimeCare. You can’t change a PrimeCare to device to a Non-PrimeCare device. So no InControl License or SpeedFusion license are available for PrimeCare device.
So to clarify, I buy a peplink transit duo and let the Primecare lapse more than 6 months without renewing (because I don’t care about hardware warranty) and after this 6 months there’s no way for me to use this device to bond to a Speedfusion hub?
So it cannot do what I got it for in the first place just because it wasn’t being used for a couple of months? Hope this isn’t the case.
@Zenon_VanDeventer, as soon as your warranty is up, the Primecare and all its features will not be active. If you want to wait 6 months to try and reactivate Primecare/warranty and all the features after the expiration would be your preference. There are a lot of extra things to go through at that point.
Peplink has clear policies stated regarding their warranties, devices, and Primecare, which can be found here.
if you want the potential to pay to activate certain features like SF after the warranty ends, you need to purchase a non-Primecare device.
@mystery, I doubt they will offer the decouple option anytime soon or at all, as Primecare is still pretty new for Peplink. The intent of Primecare is that you want to keep the device under warranty to get all of those features without having to pay for each one separately/Ala carte.
If one wanted to keep the features and not use a warranty, then why not just purchase the Non-Primecare device in the first place? I know there will be a price increase between the two, but that’s something one has to decide before they make a purchase, as well as the extra features offered by both devices.
For example: If you order a Balance 310X, this model comes with 2 SF licenses automatically that can be used after the warranty is up. All the SF features will still be active and available to use for those 2 licenses, but you will have to manually setup everything through the Web-UI, not IC2. This model does not offer IC2 monitoring as a single purchase feature.
I think the concern is some dont want to continue the warranty but do not want to lose the software features. There should be a decoupled option.
There is such an option for (most? all?) devices: Buy the non-PrimeCare version. You get one year of warranty and IC2 access, and can enroll in IC2 separately after that.
I have worked with large billion dollar organizations. Some want to pay the full warranty/support for a few years then switch to no warranty and replace devices as they fail or sunset. They would still want the full feature set.
Your reference to large billion dollar organizations not willing to pay a little more money for a non-Primecare device, and the SF license outright, plus the possible yearly license, sounds a little strange to me. Are you or your organization not even offering non-Primecare devices to clients?
For the original device question (Transit Duo) you can purchase a separate SF license (Wan Smoothing/Bandwidth bonding) which will still work after the warranty has lapsed or not been renewed. However, there is no IC2 license for this device, so everything would have to be changed through the routers web ui.
I am talking in general, not about Primecare or Peplink specifically. Usually when budgeting and getting approval, many large organizations start with the capital cost to acquire and then a certain amount set aside for maintenance in years 1-3, for example. when it comes time to renew at year 3, some companies decide not to keep renewing warranty but as long as the device is still receiving security updates, they will continue to use it until the hardware fails or the sunset the devices (replace with something new). Some times devices hardware even get rotated into less mission critical use or put into a lab environment. If features are turned off, that may render the device useless. I am merely pointing out this is a plausible scenario (where one want might to retain feature set but cease paying for full warranty coverage).
Our company has about 30 peplink devices and I still cannot get clarity on how this is supposed to work. If I bought a paplink transit duo for example and the warranty runs out because it’s a few years old then I seem to not be able to keep the functionality which I wanted in the first place, which is bonding.
