Besides some extra bucks for custom, postage and VAT: Is it assured that it is legal to import the TTN gateways to every country?
The gateway is an electronic product with RF transceiver. Ususally there are regulations on RF products depending on national standards, e.g. “CE” confirmation for Europe, or “FCC” confirmation for US. If gateways are directly sent from HongKong, the buyer is the importer. That means the buyer is responsible to declare that the product meets all national regulations.
The ball is in your court. I pay either way.
Is the firmware (update) payed? Until now we have had only discussion and speculation about the gateway software. It seems as if there is more information, even a decision that we are not aware of. As a stakeholder I expect to be informed about this. What is the current status on this topic?
@wienkegiezeman
I’m one of thoses that ordered via “pre-order through website” in Oct 2016 (Order 878).
Its great to hear
“…So the products were all created in one batch…”
but does this apply only for Kickstarter backers?
Or can I expect a lovely email telling me when I will be getting a shiny new gateway 
Edit
Please note, I ordered and paid before the “same terms as kickstarter” restriction was added to the shop website
https://web.archive.org/web/20160623204823/https://shop.thethingsnetwork.com/
Also, the order email (and order process) never refered to kickstarter or anything else as being a risk of non-delivery. My understanding is that some of us “pre-order” backers (like myself) do have the right of a refund against TTN if we so wish.
No info yet. But there is no model yet in place to subsidise so status is unclear. We expect to be updating regularly.
This discussion are only about KS orders as they not yet included VAT. Shop orders already paid VAT.
With ‘firmware’ I take it you don’t mean ‘packet forwarder’? Because like @johan said here ‘there is no such thing as a premium user on TTN’ and that the packet forwarder would remain open source.
Also, the reply of @shaitjema1 here gave the impression the firmware for the gateway itself would also be open source?
It will be open sourced.
It is a bit of a surprise, since it was explicitly mentioned that there was a flat fee of (in my case) EUR 50 added to the pledge amount to account for both shipping costs and VAT.
And to be honest, as a private person who has no commercial interest in LoRa it’s already quite a large amount of money to spend. The same goes for the conference, which sounds really nice to get the knowledge but the company I work for doesn’t benefit directly from me getting that knowledge (and certificate) so it’s all out of my own pocket (also adding VAT). I’m still considering it though for my own benefit, never hurts to learn and looks good on CV.
So yeah, I definitely want TTN to succeed and think the Kickstarter (and pre-order) gateways being maintained will help a lot but it is a blow after waiting for so long (which I admit is not surprising to a KS backer). Any estimates on the possible extra costs in shipping/handling/VAT for the EUR 290+50 level combo? (Netherlands in my case)
Tried to find out customs duty for importing from china to EU country, looks like it will be 0%.
So only national VAT and postage will have to be paid, so could result in extra amount of 50-80€ ?
Based on statement from Kickstarter, the shipment and VAT are already paid for EU. This was clearly stated.
Do I have to add 21% VAT inside the EU?
No actually. We have added that inside our worldwide flat shipping fee. We made the decision to compensate the difference (high shipping costs outside the EU but no VAT vs lower shipping costs inside the EU but with VAT) into one flat fee shipping cost.
Several of the well known names of shipment (UPS, DHL…) charge a significant extra to handle VAT and other taxeses.
I noticed a lot of shipment out of China use some proxy in Europe, so the parcel makes its last part alone, but handled in bulk from Asia to Europe. Wouldn’t be a idea to explore ?
Thanks for providing us with all this feedback. We will always have an inside out bias. So we need this.
We decided that we sent out the shipments with VAT and give consumer backers the possibility to claim that back with us. We will also explain in the same mail why paying VAT could be interpreted as being fair as the reasoning behind including the VAT after 2 days launching the campaign was with regards to the high shipping costs. As we are now shipping everything from China because of the unexpected high number of orders, this is no longer valid.
We will also make clear that making us bare more investment for this project is a risk for the a sustainable The Things Network. We are taking a loss on each gateway. And now the success actually is turning against us because the more gateways the more loss.
Hope the transparency and the gesture for consumer backers is appreciated and we can get on with building a global collaborative IoT data network.
Can we change our pledge ? Instead of claim back VAT, I prefer to loss a things-uno and/or a things-node (and keep gateway only).
Something we can consider. Let me get back on that one.
Will you also make losses on the Kickstarter Unos and Nodes or only on the gateways?
As a project you cannot really separate this. But as a whole backers will get a 50-60% sponsored product.
Why is the loss increasing with number of produced gateways? Normally cost per unit go down as numbers rise. The bare metal of the gateway won’t be 300€, or am i wrong?
So solution could be mass production and make revenue to spend on growth of TTN?
In 2015 I backed a Dutch project on KickStarter under the assumption that shipping would be from NL. On my pledge I have been charged an extra 50 euro for shipping: a ridiculous amount for shipping in the Netherlands, but I accepted that because of Update 1 and FAQ 3. I do not expect to be charged twice.
If you make loss on one gateway and you sell 1500 you make 1500 times that loss. Indeed future revenues would come from future sales.
If you see KS as a webshop I would understand your standpoint. Fortunately it is not. It is platform where one can join the risk and gains of getting a project to the market.
I never said that KS is a webshop. I have taken the risk, invested and paid up front, waited two years, organized a local community, got myself a non-TTN (Multitech) gateway, contributed to local workshops and teaching, helped people getting started, borrowed out equipment. And am now waiting for my KickStarter “reward”… I am frustrated to hear that I have to invest even more.