Let's see where to start... first, I don't like people or companies
that waste money. These guys are blowing through money because it's not
their money, it's investor money, so they don't care. The people making
the decisions are "employees". They will make $200k per year in salary,
ride it for as many years as investors keep putting money in, and then
they will just go find another job.
Example 1: They purchased 4 brand new vehicles (Chevy Tahoes) for their
"managers" to drive. They then spent $2,000 per vehicle doing vehicle
wraps on them.
They also do not have $3.6M in yearly revenue from just our community.
My guess would be they have as many as 3,000 subs right now.... but
they also sell service as cheap as $17.95/month for college students. I
would guess their ARPU is around $30.
So, running the numbers (again, this is just our small community): 3000
x $30 = $90,000/month income. Less salaries, tower rents, bandwidth,
etc. Let's say for fun they are "making" $50,000 per month gross
profit. They spent almost $1,000,000 on just the equipment in my area
(population 50,000). So that's 20 months for ROI for just the AP and
backhauls... not counting the $400 CPE they are installing at each
customer. That also does not count the 2.5ghz license they had to
purchase for millions.
I do not believe that a good, sound business requires investment money
every year to keep running. This is no different than a Cable company
or Telco business model... WAY too much fat and too many "managers" and
not enough people actually doing the work. Their business model does
not work if they continue to lose money every month... unless they
continue to find stupid investors to keep sinking money into a failing
business.
And I don't need to "steal all their customers".... we have more
pending installs than we can keep up with.... I have hired two
installers in the last two months and we are looking to hire another.
We currently have over 100 pending installs. We are doing 140-150 new
installs per month. We have no outside investors. We own our entire
infrastructure free and clear. We have no debt. Our 2008 year was our
biggest year ever (gross revenues up 10.2% and profit was up 15.4% over
2007). We don't carry the "fat" and extra overhead that many companies
do... if an employee is gone (installer, receptionist, dispatcher,
whoever) we notice it. We run a very lean, tight ship. We never have
people just sitting around with nothing to do.
Last, for what it's worth, we are picking up about 1-2 of their
customers per month. This is without us doing ANY advertisting (except
yellow page ads), and no sales people at all. Seems to be working...
WITHOUT investor money. :)
Travis
Microserv
John Scrivner wrote:
I do not care to see people trashing each other's business models
whether they are cash poor, cash rich or someplace in the middle. I am
actually glad to see some data on this particular model because I
think it actually could work well with $3.6M in yearly revenues. I
think it is impressive. I wish we could all gain access to some of
this spectrum, big cash, licensed WiMax gear and build it out. That
does not mean I think it is the only model nor do I trash the
occasional cash strapped guy building his first Wi-Fi POP with his
VISA card nor the typical WISP operator who took out a second mortgage
or similar "pound of flesh" financing to launch his first few towers
using unlicensed. God bless all of them. I think we should all try to
respect that each of us have a different approach. I certainly do not
pretend to think I have all the answers and I appreciate those who
share what they do to make their model work. I sense some sour grapes
here due to this network being built in your territory. If you think
it is a poor model then steal all their customers and teach them a
lesson. Tell us how you did please. That would tell a far more
compelling story than just trashing their model on the list.
Scriv
On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 8:41 PM, Travis Johnson <t...@ida.net> wrote:
Plus the cost of the 2.5ghz license in our area... which I heard they
paid like $7,000,000 for (in an area with 50,000 population)... plus the
licensed backhauls (Ceragon 18ghz in a ring), plus tower rent (they are
on the most expensive towers in town).
No wonder they are blowing through investor money faster than they can
get it... LOL
Travis
John Rock wrote:
Hmmm
4 sector 2.5 Ghz system
1,000,000 deployment
4000 users paying you $74.99 for Voip and Data from your deployment
It all works
Priceless
Do the math
John Rock
Director of Operations - Senior Engineer
Wireless Connections
166 Milan Ave., Norwalk, Oh. 44857
ACCessing the Future Today!!
ofc. 419.660.6100
cell 419-706-7356
fax 419-668-4077
<http://www.wirelessconnections.net/> http://www.wirelessconnections.net
This transmission and any files attached to it, may contain confidential
and/or privileged information and intended only for the named recipient. If
you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any
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From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On
Behalf Of Travis Johnson
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 7:44 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] 2nd Look @ 3.65 ?
Hi,
We have BridgeMaxx in our area. They are using 2.5ghz licensed with Alvarion
WiMax equipment. This is the "top of the line", $50k per sector type stuff.
Then I can also tell you that we are seeing a LOT of antennas that have to
be mounted outdoors, on a tripod with a 10ft pole to get over the trees. The
NLOS doesn't seem to be working very well, especially on several of these
the tower is less than a mile away.
So they spent $250k per tower x 4 towers in our area and they are still
having to roll a truck and do an outdoor install. And this is even with
2.5ghz licensed. It makes me happy to see one of their antennas mounted
outdoors... that's means they lost even more money for that install... :)
Travis
Microserv
John Rock wrote:
Matt,
I have pictures to show you...
Believe it or not?
John Rock
Director of Operations - Senior Engineer
Wireless Connections
166 Milan Ave., Norwalk, Oh. 44857
ACCessing the Future Today!!
ofc. 419.660.6100
cell 419-706-7356
fax 419-668-4077
http://www.wirelessconnections.net
This transmission and any files attached to it, may contain confidential
and/or privileged information and intended only for the named recipient. If
you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any
disclosure, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination, disclosure, copying
or any use of the information or files contained is strictly prohibited. If
you have received this transmission in error, please notify the sender by
reply transmission and delete this electronic mail.
-----Original Message-----
From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On
Behalf Of Matt Liotta
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:29 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] 2nd Look @ 3.65 ?
On Mar 19, 2009, at 3:18 PM, Chuck Bartosch wrote:
However, that (obviously) means it's not particularly viable in many
situations where you don't see enough customers to support a wimax
base station. But because 3.65 with diversity is supposed to deliver
NLOS performance similar to or better than 900 MHz, you can see
customers you wouldn't otherwise see.
I can tell you for a fact that even with uplink subchannelization,
diversity, and all of WiMAX's OFDM subcarriers, 3.65 does not deliver
NLOS performance similar to or better than 900Mhz. Throw all the
technology you want at it and 3.65 is still not going to get through
much foliage. NLOS performance in an urban environment on the other
hand is great.
-Matt
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