Marlon,
Your comment that I was "short sighted" because I don't turn potential
customers over to my competition really hit a nerve. Sure we have made
some mistakes along the way, but being called short sighted because I
don't share networks and customers with competition is asinine.
You talk about the cell companies and the values they get when they
sell, etc. but I can tell you that the cell companies aren't turning
customers over to each other people they may have poor coverage in an
area. :)
Travis
Microserv
Marlon K. Schafer wrote:
Travis, I think you've misunderstood me.
I'm not saying you don't have a good company. Clearly you do. I also
think you're a bright guy.
There are likely two reasons for the size difference in out
companies. The biggest would be market size. My whole COUNTY has
10,000 people in it. Probably less than that by now. The next county
over probably has less than 50,000. I have DSL, cable, FTTH
(basically GIVEN away by a PUD), and several other wisps as
competition on this very rural area.
I started my business as a copier sales and service company in '95
with no inventory, no customers, a few tools an $3000 in the bank.
It's fair to say that I didn't exactly have an easy time of it when
starting out. I started the ISP in '97, not cause I thought it a good
business, but because no one else would do it here. In '98 I started
the homebrew DSL thing, and in '99 I started the wireless.
In 2001 when we switched from mostly office equipment work to only
internet, we had a TON of debt. An ex service manager had spent a
year setting up his own company and when he left me I lost 50%(!!!) of
my revenue in 1 month. I'd just moved into a brand new big building
etc. Had more space and a LOT more of a lease payment than I needed
due to the reduced business.
Two... We've grown much slower than some, but I'm very much a man of
my word. I've been careful NOT to put myself in a position of
possible bankruptsy etc. We've been late sometimes but other than the
lease on that building, I've never walked away from a single bill.
Even when many I know have filed bankruptsy in far easier situations.
Maybe that makes me a fool, but I'm a fool you know you can do honest
business with.
3000 subs sounds great, till you think about companies with 30,000 or
300,000 subs. THAT's where *I* want to be. Actually, I want that
$10,000,000 cash payment for my company. grin. Look again, at the
original OWNERS of all of those cell phone companies that used to
exist. Or the ones that had the cable companies etc. Why were those
sales so valuable? I believe because of cooperation and
standardization. Make it as cheap and easy to take over your
operations as it can be.
BTW, 1% per year in growth? Plus a 10% drop in costs? That's nice.
Our gross sales have increased by 15 to 16% per year for the last
three years. We're still not advertising either. And this year, so
far, we're running 96% ahead of last years growth. I may be in a very
small market, but I'm a damned good operator!
laters,
marlon
----- Original Message ----- From: "Travis Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] WISP Peering
Well, I seem to be holding my own ground pretty well... and I DON'T
turn customers over to my competition... over 65 towers in operation,
over 3,000 wireless subs, hundreds of DSL subs, almost 50 fiber subs
(banks, hospitals, insurance, etc.)... and NO outside investors,
stock holders, or any long-term debt whatsoever. :)
(OT: Our annual gross revenue has been within 1% of the previous year
for the past 4 years. However, I have managed to decrease our
expenses by 10% every year. While this doesn't seem like a lot,
realize we are a multi-million dollar company. There is EASY money to
be made by just cutting expenses. Things like shopping around for
better CC rates, better insurance rates, cheaper bandwidth, etc.)
Also, if you leased your equipment, you could put the new tower up
for less than $200 per month for EVERYTHING. ;)
<rant>
Call it what you will Marlon, but I believe you started your wireless
operation around 1997 (going off your website). In 1997 we started
our wireless service as well. Today we have over 3,000 connected
wireless subs and are growing at over 100 per month. We have been
profitable since our first year in business. This will be _another_
record breaking year for us. We have a backbone uptime of 99.99% over
the last 2 years (including scheduled maintenance). Our wireless subs
see a 99.9% uptime (including maintenance, interferance issues, blown
AP's, etc). We deliver over 150Mbps of internet traffic during
business hours using three diverse providers (DS3 via Qwest fiber,
OC3 via seperate Qwest fiber, Level3 via fastethernet via seperate
fiber via seperate NOC). We provide service to 8 entire school
districts (out of a possible 10 in our entire 25,000 square mile
coverage area).
</rant>
So, if I'm short sighted and you are not, why is my company 10x the
size and making 10x the profit when both of us started at the same time?
Travis
Microserv
Marlon K. Schafer wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Travis Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] WISP Peering
Why wouldn't you just put up your own AP's and service the same
area rather than give that customer away to the competition?
Spectrum congestion.
Cashflow
Speed.
Expanded coverage, very quickly, for no money.
I would spend $5k and put up my own tower before I turn a
"potential" customer away to the competition. I've done it many
times over the years and it has always paid off. Once one person is
connected, they tell their neighbors about it. Pretty soon an AP
that was put up for a single customer has 10 or 20 customers on it.
Um, the competitors ALREADY have networks in place!!!!!
Doesn't seem to make business sense to me. Plus when they need tech
support, how do you troubleshoot the competitors AP's? How do you
do RF link tests and packet loss tests at 10:00PM when the customer
is on the phone?
I call the competitor on his cell phone. Just like he does with me.
Your attidude, while pretty typical, is very short sighted. The
more we work together to keep the airways clean and maximize the
investments, the better all of our networks run and the faster we
can grow.
It's that silly ol' "Together we stand" thing.
I was watching a group of kids play Red Rover the other day. I had
to wonder how that game would turn out if the kids all tried to
stand there and hold their OWN ground instead of working as a team.
Travis
Microserv
Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "George Rogato"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 6:42 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] WISP Peering
Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote:
Two of my competitors just sat down for lunch and worked out a
network sharing agreement. It's a handshake deal at this point
though.
Basically we carved up a hilltop laying out coverage zones for
each of us, and we set a price for using each other's ap's.
Marlon
Hey I think thats a good thing you've done there Marlon, getting
along and even doing business with your competitors.
Yeah. It's something that the three of us have already been doing
for a couple of years. We sell on each other's ap's at the same
price. The only catch is that each of us has to live under the bw,
and bit cap rules of the other guys network vs. our own. But that
seems perfectly fair to me.
We also handle all tech support for the cusotmer. The customer
should NEVER contact the other isp. We have however, shown up
together at problematic customers and worked jointly to fix any
issues.
But where do you think the line would be drawn in respect to anti
competitive practices?
I'm not sure. We've not had that come up yet.
Did you have a specific situation in mind?
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