Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Oris itgettingbetter?
I have a connection to another WISP. Cost? $0. When my main upstream goes down, MT automatically routes everything through the backup. In exchange, I provide labor to the other WISP when he encounters things he personally doesn't want to do. I think it's a great relationship. It'd cost each of us more to get our half of the equation elsewhere. Everything is completely diverse. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Brian Rohrbacher Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 8:38 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Oris itgettingbetter? Don't be afraid to get creative with your backup connection. Mine is a $60 a month 6 meg down and 768k up DSL line. Sure we average 12 meg on the bandwidth graph, but it's better than being off. When I have to use the backup I limit all connections to 56k up and 100k down. Brian Tom DeReggi wrote: Actually, I disagree with your example. You let your customer down, not Qwest. Did you route them out your secondary transit? If you didn;t have one, thats not the customer's faught. Did you let him know that you are trying to contact Quest yourself to get more information on an ETA, and influence a work around? Did he feel you were in control of the situation? Or did you leave him to fend for himself, even though you were the expert on the technology? Sending the message, oh well, its down, not my problem, let all my own customers suffer, so what is not taking care of your clients. If you had communicated with your client making him feel like you were working towards defending his interests, he never would have took action into his own hands and called Qwest directly to investigate further, and get false answers. So yes, Customers can be irrational, often unfair and unforgiving, but if you want to keep your clients its up to you to deal with it and take care of them. Who's faught it is, is irrelevent. Customer Service is about taking care of the customer. I just lost a customer 2 weeks ago. Power went out AGAIN! It keeps blowing breakers on electrical panels not under my controll or access. I can put UPSes there all day, but that does no good if breakers turn off upstream of my electrical Demarc. But DSL, CABLE, and Cellular EVDO didn't go out every time the property had power failures. It was my faught that I designed a business install to be behind an electric breaker that was outside my control to manage. If I did my job and took care of the client, I would have called the power company or property management and redesign an alternate solution, after the first couple of times the power went out. But I didn't. Yes, I lost the client, and yes, it was my fault. Blaiming it on the Power Company didn't work for long. Just keeping it real. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Ryan Ghering rgher...@gmail.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 10:22 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Yesterday, we had a long term upstream outage. Someone in Qwest killed our ATM upstream and somehow we were getting crosstalk to another ATM PVC. (Don't ask nobody can tell me how this was done). In the mean time customers are calling us screaming that they need their net. Our staff politely informs them all day long that this isn't a issue with us, its upstream. Some customers accept that and move on for the day. However the kicker!! One of our customers which is a dedicated 3 meg calls up and asks, Are you down I say yes at this time the internet is down due to a problem with qwest in Denver. The customer says ok, do you have an ETA? I tell him no not at this time the problem is with qwest not with us. Customer says ok thanks and hangs up. Not 20 minutes later I get a phone call from the customer, he's mad as hell and spitting nails. I only caught about 1/2 of what he had said. But it sounded like. Your a damn lier, I call qwest, they have NO issues anywhere. I want my ** Net or you can kiss my account goodbye a**hole.. Then he hangs up. ( mind you this is a business customer ) I call him back about an hour later and he says he's canceled. And will get service from somewhere else. How can this be? How was this my fault? Customers are irrational and stupid.. Agreed. lol Ryan On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 1:58 AM, Marlon K. Schafer o...@odessaoffice.comwrote: roflol Rick this is a GOOD thing Your customers call you for all problems because YOU WILL ANSWER THE PHONE!! Sometimes great service levels suck. lol marlon - Original Message - From: Rick Kunze rku...@colusanet.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 5:40 PM Subject: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is it gettingbetter? Customer calls just now
Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless?Oris itgettingbetter?
What we found was that If ISP1 has 100mb, and ISP2 has a 100mb, and ISP1 goes down and routes backup to ISP2, ISP2's customers now get performance degregation and network congestions, at the expense of ISP1. ISP2 looses customers and gains bad will far more expensive than just the backup bandwidth savings. And then of course there was a cost to connect one WISP to the other, where sometimes the transport is more expensive than the transit (even if wireless). I think there are three other options that help make a bandwdith sharing relationship work with another WISP. 1) Have 3 circuits total, and Share costs on the third backup connection. Each WISPA has their own primary connection, and then either can fail over to the shared backup connection. It being rare that both providers would fail at the same time with full traffic load. 2) ISP2 Upgrades to faster speeds, where there is a cost savings per MB, because there was a higher commit. Now ISP2 has excess capacity. ISP1 helps cover a percentage of the cost of ISP2's increased cost bandwidth. Everyone wins because there is bandwidth to spare, and lower cost per mb is acheived for being better positioned to compete. 3) ISP1 uses provider A, ISP2 uses provider B, both ISPs buy more bandwdith than they need so there is excess capacity, then two WISPs become backup for each other. Again, also increases value of carrier diversity, possibly allowing better pricing for increased volume. My point here is it is awesome when WISPs work togeather for mutual benefit, what ever the deal ends up being. I'm just pointing out excess capacity isn't free, and need to plan for the capacity that is really needed during the failover situation. The thing to realize is that maximum benefit is not always realized in a one to one relationship. A 3 WISP partnership has greater savings than a 2 WISP partnership, etc. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Mike Hammett wispawirel...@ics-il.net To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 3:19 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless?Oris itgettingbetter? I have a connection to another WISP. Cost? $0. When my main upstream goes down, MT automatically routes everything through the backup. In exchange, I provide labor to the other WISP when he encounters things he personally doesn't want to do. I think it's a great relationship. It'd cost each of us more to get our half of the equation elsewhere. Everything is completely diverse. - Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Brian Rohrbacher Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 8:38 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Oris itgettingbetter? Don't be afraid to get creative with your backup connection. Mine is a $60 a month 6 meg down and 768k up DSL line. Sure we average 12 meg on the bandwidth graph, but it's better than being off. When I have to use the backup I limit all connections to 56k up and 100k down. Brian Tom DeReggi wrote: Actually, I disagree with your example. You let your customer down, not Qwest. Did you route them out your secondary transit? If you didn;t have one, thats not the customer's faught. Did you let him know that you are trying to contact Quest yourself to get more information on an ETA, and influence a work around? Did he feel you were in control of the situation? Or did you leave him to fend for himself, even though you were the expert on the technology? Sending the message, oh well, its down, not my problem, let all my own customers suffer, so what is not taking care of your clients. If you had communicated with your client making him feel like you were working towards defending his interests, he never would have took action into his own hands and called Qwest directly to investigate further, and get false answers. So yes, Customers can be irrational, often unfair and unforgiving, but if you want to keep your clients its up to you to deal with it and take care of them. Who's faught it is, is irrelevent. Customer Service is about taking care of the customer. I just lost a customer 2 weeks ago. Power went out AGAIN! It keeps blowing breakers on electrical panels not under my controll or access. I can put UPSes there all day, but that does no good if breakers turn off upstream of my electrical Demarc. But DSL, CABLE, and Cellular EVDO didn't go out every time the property had power failures. It was my faught that I designed a business install to be behind an electric breaker that was outside my control to manage. If I did my job and took care of the client, I would have called the power company or property management and redesign an alternate solution, after the first couple of times the power went out. But I didn't. Yes, I lost
Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Oris itgettingbetter?
Netflix works great over wireless. I'm my own worst customer. Watch streaming netflix movies frequently and have a wireless link to the house. Granted the AP I'm on has 75% business clients on it and a fairly light customer load on it. But no crashes on it nor complaints from customers on sluggish or slow internet while I enjoy my movies ;) they need more HD quality movies ;) 2.5 to 3.5Mbps bw consumption. FYI if there is enough bandwidth most devices I seen will do download spurts of the netflix movies. 20-30sec at say 4-5Mbit then 10-20sec with no bw utilization then another 20-30 second spurt. Average bw util of 2.5-3.5 for HD quality. If you have a wireless link to your house you could simply change your routing to have your internet feed go out your TW link at your house if your main pipe is down since you have the bw there. This way you don't relay on feed of internet to the same location for both primary and backup (think backhoe) and maybe your house is served of a different CO as well (another plus). There are many other benefits and reasons as well to have primary internet and backup at physical different locations. /Eje Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile -Original Message- From: Robert West robert.w...@just-micro.com Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 13:47:51 To: 'WISPA General List'wireless@wispa.org Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Sort of. The main connection is at full bore price but the secondary is a slower connection, not the 20/20 we have for the main at almost 800 bucks per month. But our salesperson says, and I haven’t had to try it, we can call in and have it moved to full speed in a matter of minutes. We are paying $250 for the second connection which is their standard business price for 15/2 on copper. (They built the line out with fiber into the office and then terminated into copper to make it look good on paper and to keep it cheap. The salesman did some tricks on the install to get it put in for zero cash) I can also use the Time Warner at the house since we have a Home Based Business plan there which is 15/2 and they charge 89 bucks for it. Sales guy said that also falls within the terms of use. One way or another, we should be able to access to something in case of an outage. Yeah, I use Time Warner at home, the wife would crash the wireless with all her Netflix. :) -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of RickG Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 12:46 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Robert, you have two TW connections? Did they charge you double for that? -RickG On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Robert Westrobert.w...@just-micro.com wrote: Don't be afraid to get creative with your backup connection. Mine is a $60 a month 6 meg down and 768k up DSL line. Sure we average 12 meg on the bandwidth graph, but it's better than being off. When I have to use the backup I limit all connections to 56k up and 100k down. I agree. In my area, we use Time Warner for fiber and have 2 separate access points for them, each on different sides of the county where Time Warner are told us are not directly connected so that if someone runs off the road and smacks a pole, the whole system isn't down. To back that all up, we use 2 basic DSL lines from SBC. As Brian said, throttle is down so that at least the ones who can bear the slow speed can get what they need if they can stick it out. On a funny note, however, once during an outage, and just as a joke... I told a customer who just HAD to get on her Pogo.com that I could burn her off some internet on a CD and she could pick it up here in the office. She put the phone down before I could tell her it was a joke and I could hear her yelling to her husband how he needed to run to town and pick up the internet I was going to burn for her. She came back and said that was fine, she was going to send him in. Who would have thunk it??? So now it's a joke around here, I'm gonna burn her some Google so she can get her mail for anyone who is down. Rural Ohio, gotta love it. From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Brian Rohrbacher Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 9:38 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Don't be afraid to get creative with your backup connection. Mine is a $60 a month 6 meg down and 768k up DSL line. Sure we average 12 meg on the bandwidth graph, but it's better than being off. When I have to use the backup I limit all connections to 56k up and 100k down. Brian Tom DeReggi wrote: Actually, I disagree with your example. You let your customer down, not Qwest. Did you route them out your secondary transit? If
Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Oris itgettingbetter?
I hesitate to add that she is also a uTorrent and Pirate Bay junkie. She is a little obsessive with it. I've gone as far as throttling her connection at times without her knowing it.. And yeah, I have a thing with redundancy so I'm always looking for and planning for alternative paths in case of an outage. Luck was with us during the Hurricane Ike incident here in Ohio, the whole area was out of power but the office still had power and the main pipe was still up and going strong. Across the street, nothing! -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of e...@wisp-router.com Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 2:14 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Oris itgettingbetter? Netflix works great over wireless. I'm my own worst customer. Watch streaming netflix movies frequently and have a wireless link to the house. Granted the AP I'm on has 75% business clients on it and a fairly light customer load on it. But no crashes on it nor complaints from customers on sluggish or slow internet while I enjoy my movies ;) they need more HD quality movies ;) 2.5 to 3.5Mbps bw consumption. FYI if there is enough bandwidth most devices I seen will do download spurts of the netflix movies. 20-30sec at say 4-5Mbit then 10-20sec with no bw utilization then another 20-30 second spurt. Average bw util of 2.5-3.5 for HD quality. If you have a wireless link to your house you could simply change your routing to have your internet feed go out your TW link at your house if your main pipe is down since you have the bw there. This way you don't relay on feed of internet to the same location for both primary and backup (think backhoe) and maybe your house is served of a different CO as well (another plus). There are many other benefits and reasons as well to have primary internet and backup at physical different locations. /Eje Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile -Original Message- From: Robert West robert.w...@just-micro.com Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 13:47:51 To: 'WISPA General List'wireless@wispa.org Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Sort of. The main connection is at full bore price but the secondary is a slower connection, not the 20/20 we have for the main at almost 800 bucks per month. But our salesperson says, and I havent had to try it, we can call in and have it moved to full speed in a matter of minutes. We are paying $250 for the second connection which is their standard business price for 15/2 on copper. (They built the line out with fiber into the office and then terminated into copper to make it look good on paper and to keep it cheap. The salesman did some tricks on the install to get it put in for zero cash) I can also use the Time Warner at the house since we have a Home Based Business plan there which is 15/2 and they charge 89 bucks for it. Sales guy said that also falls within the terms of use. One way or another, we should be able to access to something in case of an outage. Yeah, I use Time Warner at home, the wife would crash the wireless with all her Netflix. :) -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of RickG Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 12:46 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Robert, you have two TW connections? Did they charge you double for that? -RickG On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Robert Westrobert.w...@just-micro.com wrote: Don't be afraid to get creative with your backup connection. Mine is a $60 a month 6 meg down and 768k up DSL line. Sure we average 12 meg on the bandwidth graph, but it's better than being off. When I have to use the backup I limit all connections to 56k up and 100k down. I agree. In my area, we use Time Warner for fiber and have 2 separate access points for them, each on different sides of the county where Time Warner are told us are not directly connected so that if someone runs off the road and smacks a pole, the whole system isn't down. To back that all up, we use 2 basic DSL lines from SBC. As Brian said, throttle is down so that at least the ones who can bear the slow speed can get what they need if they can stick it out. On a funny note, however, once during an outage, and just as a joke... I told a customer who just HAD to get on her Pogo.com that I could burn her off some internet on a CD and she could pick it up here in the office. She put the phone down before I could tell her it was a joke and I could hear her yelling to her husband how he needed to run to town and pick up the internet I was going to burn for her. She came back and said that was fine, she was going to send him in. Who would have thunk it??? So now it's a joke around here, I'm gonna burn her some Google so
Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Oris itgettingbetter?
If you don't have a generator for the office it's good to get one. Natural gas powered generators with auto transfer switches can be had pretty affordable these days. Home depot has a 13kw that is nice and not to expensive. We used it at our old locations. Enough to power all our infrastructure devices and the lights. At our new building we have a 40kw that powers almost everything in our new building so if we loose power it's business as usual. It set us back 10k plus electrician labor. The old unit was moved to our house. Of course we have big UPS's in the NOC but only holds us 30 to 40min max but with the generator we just need about 30 to 40 second uptime max before the generator is up and running. Have a handshake agreement with a local WISP to interlink in case of sever internet outages. All we need is to run a cat5 cable if needed. Cost $0. But don't help for the short 1 or 2 hour upstream problems but if there was a fiber cut or other natural disaster we can be back online within a few hours. Either our competitor or ourselves. So far never had to make the call or gotten the call. /Eje Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile -Original Message- From: Robert West robert.w...@just-micro.com Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 14:34:24 To: e...@wisp-router.com; 'WISPA General List'wireless@wispa.org Subject: RE: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Oris itgettingbetter? I hesitate to add that she is also a uTorrent and Pirate Bay junkie. She is a little obsessive with it. I've gone as far as throttling her connection at times without her knowing it.. And yeah, I have a thing with redundancy so I'm always looking for and planning for alternative paths in case of an outage. Luck was with us during the Hurricane Ike incident here in Ohio, the whole area was out of power but the office still had power and the main pipe was still up and going strong. Across the street, nothing! -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of e...@wisp-router.com Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 2:14 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Oris itgettingbetter? Netflix works great over wireless. I'm my own worst customer. Watch streaming netflix movies frequently and have a wireless link to the house. Granted the AP I'm on has 75% business clients on it and a fairly light customer load on it. But no crashes on it nor complaints from customers on sluggish or slow internet while I enjoy my movies ;) they need more HD quality movies ;) 2.5 to 3.5Mbps bw consumption. FYI if there is enough bandwidth most devices I seen will do download spurts of the netflix movies. 20-30sec at say 4-5Mbit then 10-20sec with no bw utilization then another 20-30 second spurt. Average bw util of 2.5-3.5 for HD quality. If you have a wireless link to your house you could simply change your routing to have your internet feed go out your TW link at your house if your main pipe is down since you have the bw there. This way you don't relay on feed of internet to the same location for both primary and backup (think backhoe) and maybe your house is served of a different CO as well (another plus). There are many other benefits and reasons as well to have primary internet and backup at physical different locations. /Eje Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile -Original Message- From: Robert West robert.w...@just-micro.com Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 13:47:51 To: 'WISPA General List'wireless@wispa.org Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Sort of. The main connection is at full bore price but the secondary is a slower connection, not the 20/20 we have for the main at almost 800 bucks per month. But our salesperson says, and I haven’t had to try it, we can call in and have it moved to full speed in a matter of minutes. We are paying $250 for the second connection which is their standard business price for 15/2 on copper. (They built the line out with fiber into the office and then terminated into copper to make it look good on paper and to keep it cheap. The salesman did some tricks on the install to get it put in for zero cash) I can also use the Time Warner at the house since we have a Home Based Business plan there which is 15/2 and they charge 89 bucks for it. Sales guy said that also falls within the terms of use. One way or another, we should be able to access to something in case of an outage. Yeah, I use Time Warner at home, the wife would crash the wireless with all her Netflix. :) -Original Message- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of RickG Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 12:46 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Robert, you have two TW connections? Did they charge you double for that? -RickG
