Sonicwall TZ150 update…

So I’ve been getting a bunch of emails from Sonicwall telling me that my “subscription services” are about to expire. I just bought the thing a month ago, and it has a number of add-ons (e.g. content filtering, spam filtering) that you can subscribe to annually. I don’t need any of that and basically ignored the emails. I finally got a call from a sales rep who explained that all of the firmware and software upgrades would no longer be available unless I renewed my support. This was pretty disappointing and a very surprising; hard to believe that you buy a piece of hardware and it only comes with 30 days of firmware upgrades. I’ve been very happy with the performance of the firewall so far, and it is very full featured. However, anyone who’s considering it as a purchase should know that you’re going to be paying at least another ~$50/year if you want to stay current with firmware and security patches.