On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] stated in their Email: bscott> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] bscott> To: Greater NH Linux User Group <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> bscott> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 20:51:14 -0500 (EST) bscott> Subject: Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant) bscott> bscott> On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, at 8:42pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: bscott> > As of my last bill, my broadband connection now costs almost double what bscott> > it did a year ago ($60.99 vs. $35/mo). That's absurd. .... There's no bscott> > incentive to keep them low. It's that simple. bscott> bscott> If it's so simple, why don't you go start a DSL company and bscott> make yourself rich? bscott> bscott> Prices are going up because the market is correcting itself bscott> to represent the true cost of delivering the services. bscott> Frankly, I think $60/month is still low. All those carriers bscott> offering DSL at $50/month were pricing themselves right out of bscott> business. And that's exactly what happened. bscott> bscott> An associate of mine had their electric meter, an old bscott> mechanical model, seize up. The power company saw their usage bscott> as zero for several months, resulting in some very low power bscott> bills. Of course, the power company eventually realized what bscott> was going on, replaced the meter, and now they have to pay for bscott> their electricity again. They didn't go to the power company bscott> and say, "Hey, you were giving it away for a couple months, bscott> why do I have to pay for it again?" bscott> bscott> The same principle applies here.
Sorry, I can't agree with this last statement. In both instances the customer would usually ask (I should hope they would anyway) if the bill goes up without explanation. The first (meter) case was a case of MTBF - easily explained. The second case though was some moron in corporate planning who screwed up - not so easily explained. It is known a meter *will* fail at some point, but whether it is in 10-years, 1-year, or even 1-day, one just can't predict (and the new meter is free anyway), but how do you explain corporate planning incompetence to an upset customer? In corporate planning you try to release a product for what you think the market will pay now (based on studies) *and* with the expectation the prices will *drop* as the product is obsoleted, competition steps in, and new technologies come to the market. At the same time you don't just force your customers to pay higher fees for upgrades and/or "customary price increases" without expecting to hear a lot of complaints and lose market share. (Oops, sorry, I forgot about the Micro$oft principle - although Linux *may* just help to re-educate M$ executives here as well...) -- "Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste." -- As seen on the 'net -- _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
