Well, our rates are 38.50 for 2M/2M and 25.50 for 300kb/300kb I think I have around 10 of the 300kb customers.
We had considered dropping rates, but the analysis last year that showed the data use growth convinced us to do otherwise. I'm glad to hear the the M stuff works well. Our first deployment is going to be something other than backhaul in a critical spot. We made that mistake with UBNT's 3.65 and it turned out to be a disaster that ended up costing us something like nearly $4k while we kept our old provider and the new provider online and waited for replacement hardware and the chance to get to our colo site... We then stuck the 3.65 gear into redundant locations, and sure enough, all the original shipment has failed. The replacements have been fine, however. I don't think there'll be many takers for a 10m pipe at 175 and a 20m pipe at 230. However, if we do sell a handful, it will fully fund our much larger commit. I'm pondering the notion of putting a gigabye limit on those accounts, however. We're still a cash based company, as in nothing is financed... Our current offer is that standard broadband installs for $165, which includes 3 months of service. That works out to about a $50 install fee. But we get the majority of our costs to install back immediately. Sometimes it's a little over, depending on what equipment we have to use. In some places, we do 900 gear, and that's still a $300+ install cost. Or, we eat most of it if the customer will pay a year in advance. 900 is reserved to the "absolutely nothing else will work" locations, as it's such a finicky and persnickety beast. Channel changes due to weather or temperature or humidity changes, and all sorts of other grief, as well, including a lot of SR9 failures. (use xr9's now) We've been doing this since we started and this is actually the first time we've been able to actually catch up, in terms of cash flow. Probably because it's been a slow year. Spring was good, which has never happened before, but fall was slow, which again, has bucked the trend. We don't require a long term commitment, we provide low cost pc help and we do "to you" customer service calls to help with routers and stuff gone wrong with your pc. Every customer is entitled to at least one call a year at no charge. Yeah, it's an old fashioned way to do business, but I have no idea what "churn" is, either. I think they mean the guys that died or moved away. I've lost less than 15 customers over the 5.5 years I've been in business, the majority of which died or moved. -------------------------------------------------- From: "jp" <j...@saucer.midcoast.com> Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 9:32 AM To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> Subject: Re: [WISPA] About Hulu and Netflix and youtube... increaseddatadeliveryis here to stay. > On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 09:17:58AM -0800, MDK wrote: >> I guess you could call me "lucky" in that I have access to darn good >> rates. >> >> I'm currently at $60/mbit and working to see if my provider will give me >> a >> break for doubling my commit. > > Continued business with you should be important. If you offer to pay the > same and get more bandwidth, that should work for everyone. > >> We're also looking at deploying either Ubnt's M based equipment or >> someone >> else's if anyone ever comes up with something workable and affordable, as >> an >> addition to our already deployed network. > > I've found the rocket5m to work pretty good with 2' dishes for ptp > links. The speed is real and it runs well. It does needs a minor work > around in that the automatic distance setting does not work, you need to > manually set it, plus 15%. I can get 100mbit no problem with 20mhz > spectrum. > > This is serious praise, as I generally prefer midrange or higher end > stuff like Alvarion, Trango, and I generally have serious reservations > about the cheap stuff for honest calculated reasons. > >> We initially had a bandwidth cost of of about $6/customer, it reached a >> low >> of about $3.3 a year or two after starting, and now it's back up to a >> little >> less than $5 / customer. We've raised our rates 50 cents, cut our >> administrative costs by $.70 for most customers by changing to EFT >> payments, >> and now we're trying to figure out how to keep up with our expected 3X >> use >> of data transfer and still keep our bandwidth costs within our planned >> maximum of $8 over the next 3 years. > > I've never raised rates in 15 years and use that as a differentiator > between us and the standard practices of the duopoly cable/telephone > competition. (We keep rates a little higher to begin with) > >> We have some strategies to help with this, one of them is to offer a >> premium >> service to residences that has higher than cable or dsl speeds for around >> $225-250 / mo, and it appears we can deliver this to over 90% of our >> service >> area at a moderate investment. >> >> Also, we're liscensing up big time for deploying 3.65 in a PtMP scheme >> over >> a sizeable area, as well. >> >> About a year ago, my biggest competitor began deploying stuff that looks >> identical to mine, though I know that it's Mikrotik inside instead of >> Star-OS. It's time to make that big step up and be ahead again for a >> while. >> >> >> >> -------------------------------------------------- >> From: "Butch Evans" <but...@butchevans.com> >> Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 8:44 PM >> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> >> Subject: Re: [WISPA] About Hulu and Netflix and youtube... increased data >> delivery is here to stay. >> >> >> At 03:09 PM 11/12/2009, you wrote: >> >> >I've been watching the thread about it with great interest. Partly >> >> >because I was wondering if anyone was going to try "my solution", >> >> >which >> >> >is, >> >> >to attempt to be able to deliver the bandwidth to the people who want >> >> >to >> >> >use >> >> >these, and have them work fine. >> >> > >> >> >Please understand, I'm not talking about a prioritizing scheme, which >> >> >puts >> >> >video ahead of surfing, etc. >> > >> > This is a good point. The fact is, that a GOOD bandwidth manager will >> > allow traffic to flow as fast as possible. One thing to bear in mind, >> > with regard to my QOS system, is that I don't speed limit ANYTHING. I >> > simply prioritize traffic so that the time sensitive stuff gets out >> > first. There is no reason to limit even P2P if there is available >> > bandwidth. Every class that I give that covers QOS, I restate this one >> > maxim: "QOS is not simply LIMITING bandwidth. Rather, QOS is about >> > MANAGING the available bandwidth resources." There is an important >> > distinction there that your comments don't take into account. >> > >> >> >We're thinking about how we're going to meet the demands of the near >> >> >future... not managing a shortage of bandwidth delivery. >> > >> > Even with sufficient bandwidth available, there are links and network >> > infrastructure where a good QOS mechanism will benefit the network. >> > >> >> >I'm thinking of planning on a future delivery of 4 to 6 meg per >> >> >customer, >> >> >oversubscribed to around 4 to 6 to one. >> > >> > For many, 4:1 would mean out of business. Even at 10:1, many would not >> > survive. There are places in this country where bandwidth is still >> > quite expensive ($200/Meg would sound GOOD to some people). Even at >> > that price, a 4:1 ratio is $50/customer before you add in ANY costs. >> > Even 10:1 is to high. It would be NICE if the price for wholesale BW >> > came down, but too many folks do not have the benefit of reasonable >> > bandwidth. >> > -- >> > ******************************************************************** >> > * Butch Evans * Professional Network Consultation* >> > * http://www.butchevans.com/ * Network Engineering * >> > * http://www.wispa.org/ * Wired or Wireless Networks * >> > * http://blog.butchevans.com/ * ImageStream, Mikrotik and MORE! * >> > ******************************************************************** >> > >> > >> > >> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > WISPA Wants You! 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