That is what we did. We sent out a welcome letter outlining the changes we intended to make and as Jaime suggested, we really pushed the reliability aspect. We also grandfathered the pricing for 1 year while we improved the network. That wisp was pretty much the same as you are describing - no speed tiers, everyone pretty much got what they got; It was like halfway through business he stopped setting up the queues. We set all the customers to his advertised speeds based upon the price they were paying him on day 1 that we took control. We had a few calls about the speed but not that many. After a year we moved their pricing to match ours (about a $10 increase) we lost a few over that but a number of people have made comments about how reliable the service is now compared to what it was.
Of course you always have those that will bitch if their ice cream is cold.. From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jerry Richardson (airCloud) via Af Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 1:06 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Purchasing another WISP It's all in how you manage the changes. Send a letter welcoming them to the family. Outline some of the steps you have taken to improve service, and that your company takes a very proactive approach to network monitoring, uptime, and performance. Let them know how to get customer support and how to contact your various departments. Taking these steps will increase retention, and sets the tone for what they can expect from their new provider. Additionally, describe the new plan options are and what plan they will be transferred to. If someone doesn't like their new plan, let them know what the upgrade options are. They can choose to upgrade or go somewhere else. On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 10:02 AM, That One Guy via Af <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Take a page out of JABs handbook and just tell them to go &^%$ themselves if they dont like it On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Mathew Howard via Af <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: I would probably just match it to the rest of your system. my guess is the majority of them won't even notice the difference... if you've cleaned up a lot of self interference issues, a lot of them will likely work better than they did before with the all the self interference issues. You probably will get a few that are mad they can't get 10mbps on a speed test at 2am anymore though... _____ From: Af [[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] on behalf of Glen Waldrop via Af [[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 11:51 AM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [AFMUG] Purchasing another WISP I just bought another WISP, negotiating with another. The previous owners set up the system using Rocket M900 using 20MHz channels on everything, stomping all over itself and everyone else in the band. I changed that, did my best to stop the self interference, smaller channels, etc... This was just a tiny bit of back story to show what I've gotten myself in to. Everyone has unlimited access to their 10Mb fiber, which I have replaced by tying it into my network. There was no traffic shaping, no speed limits, no QoS. Most of them aren't heavy users, just a couple that run torrents 24/7. The P2P folks have been limited already. Not terribly worried about upsetting them. I'm a bit concerned I'm going to anger my new customers by matching the same config I have for my system of 1Mb/4Mb. How did/would you guys handle situations like this? My main QoS at the edge prevents any one person from hogging all the bandwidth. I'm currently torn between QoS at the tower and uncapping the CPE or limiting the CPE as I've always done. -- All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer. -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925
