Not sure. What I do know is they also sent door-to-door sales people in a couple of MDU's right after we installed and a bunch of their customers shut them off. For some reason, they seem to be pretty nimble down here. When our customers in the residential market started shutting them off, they started offering the $18 fee. I was standing in the middle of a presentation in WISPA when I got the text message on this.
Rory -----Original Message----- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof via Af Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2014 10:41 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Random thought I'm surprised CenturyLink is able to match prices, usually the big telcos are locked into statewide tariffs or maybe that's not the obstacle anymore but they want to have one price over their entire service area for national marketing, billboards, website, flyers, etc. Any idea how they are able to be nimble enough to offer super low prices in just one area to squash a local competitor? Or is this just something they offer once an existing customer calls to cancel and gets routed to the retention department? -----Original Message----- From: Rory Conaway via Af Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2014 12:15 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Random thought My philosophy as a business owner is to make the most money possible based on an ethical, moral, and legal foundation. At the same time, my competitors have the same profit margin goal but prioritize legal first. When competing against multi-billion dollar companies, you can't out-market them and when you become an annoyance, they just lower their price to drive you out of business. So we used price as the door opener. When CenturyLink found out we were offering pre-paid at $18 per month (they have to pay for the full year), they dropped their service to the same price. At $18 per month, you either have to have very low costs or limited service needs. Since few people need more than 5Mbps and can't tell the difference between 5Mbps and 150Mbps, we tell them if they can tell the difference, we will refund their service. I've lost 1 client in 7 years and that was before 802.11N. They aren't stupid and most customers who check see between 6-20Mbps. Customers who are part of our current expansion are seeing 40Mbps and should be at 50Mbps over the next week or so. That being said, times have changed and we will be offering new options such as higher speed video streaming packages for $6 per month more, higher security options, etc... Rory -----Original Message----- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Tyler Treat via Af Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2014 10:04 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Random thought Rory- can your model be replicated on outside of suburbia? Aside from that, this really all goes back to your personal business philosophy. Are you trying to provide the absolute very best service possible - or - are you after the low hanging fruit? Get as many people as you can easily, and extract as much cash as possible from them. Somewhere in between the two? ___________________________ Mangled by my iPhone. ___________________________ Tyler Treat Corn Belt Technologies, Inc. tyler.tr...@cornbelttech.com ___________________________ > On Oct 18, 2014, at 11:54 AM, Rory Conaway via Af <af@afmug.com> wrote: > > We don't advertise speeds at all. We just say that you won't be able to tell a difference between our system and Comcast/Centurylink. We will also guarantee that your video will not buffer. 50% growth last year and we expect at least that this year. > > Rory > > -----Original Message----- > From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof via Af > Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2014 9:40 AM > To: af@afmug.com > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Random thought > > Good point about business and upload speed. > > Even businesses with people working from home via VPN and video Skype. I have a guy uploading documents to his server at a datacenter, he is crying that I'm only giving him 15M upload, he wants 25M. I have a professional photographer who stores his photos in RAW format and uses cloud backup. 4M upload is probably adequate for most people, but let's face it, how many people really need 60M download? If it's all about the numbers, why ignore upload. > > Probably something we should stress more in advertising. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Seth Mattinen via Af > Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2014 11:25 AM > To: af@afmug.com > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Random thought > >> On 10/18/14, 8:26 AM, Ken Hohhof via Af wrote: >> And an amazing price "for 6 months" or "for 12 months"? > > > Yeah I pay $29 for 60 meg and actually get it (typically 66). No bundle required. I can't serve myself for free but for 30 bucks I'm not too heartbroken. The upload still blows at 4 meg though. > > I don't even bother with residential, honestly. Businesses are easier to deal with, especially the ones doing cloud stuff and suffering with the > 4 meg upload. > > ~Seth > >
