Hi Jack you are right about the two points, but also it's not a problem of education but sometimes "honesty" and trustness
I will do an example: I turned on some graphs for a customer who was complaining all the time about speed. The issue was that his upload was always full and therefore that was limiting the "user experience" So I explained that and he did not want to believe. So I turned on some graphs to show that the bandwidth was there, and the issue was him not using it in the right way. After some time, he was looking at the graphs all the time and complaining everytime the graph (average on 5mins) were under the "maximum" value (i.e. if the offer was 6Mbit the graph had to be always 6mbit, whatever server he was using). So after all the calls for the "my internet is not going at full speed" I said "ok you know what, I am turning off that feature unless you pay us an extra fee". I was tired of spending my time for no money at the phone with a customer who does not understand "5 min AVERAGE". Moreoever he was saying "it's not full speed, I will not pay the bills" So after turning the graphs off he was complaining that I was hiding some nasty thing because he had no more graphs. So the lessons that I lernt were: 1) trustness: users tend to NOT believe us, even if you give them an accurate, bullet proof explanation. They are not engineers and they simpply say "I did not understand but if I pay for 6Mega I want 6Mega, because with the other WISP I am sure it will go ALWAYS at full speed" (that is the big lie of telecommunication, but who cares...) 2) education: you can spend as much time as you want explaining numbers to them but they will keep only the part they like most of those explanations and use those parts against you (to pay less, to complain, to waste your time, etc.). I am not saying we will stop trying to be polite and explicative with our users, I am just saying that it's an hard path even if you explain with full honesty "why or what" Just my 2 Euro cents > Two points - > > 1. Customer education. I think it's the job of each WISP to educate > their customers that the Internet is a huge network with multiple hops > needed to get anywhere. Yes; I know it seems stupid to us to have to do > this but much of the public is just not aware so we need to help them > understand. > > 2. Local and "Beyond Local" Testing - As part of our customer education, > we need to set up a local (at our NOC) speed test and a "beyond our NOC" > speed test link. That way, we can train the customer to a) check approx. > throughput to our NOC, and b) check approx. throughput beyond our NOC. > > jack > > > > On 8/21/2012 12:22 PM, Bret Clark wrote: >> We mostly deal with business customer and guarantee bandwidth to >> customers. We validate the bandwidth using IPERF from a Linux server >> off of our BGP edge routers down to the customer and IPERF always >> shows the customer getting the bandwidth they signed up for. We use >> QoS to control bandwidth and make sure to not oversubscribe any one >> link....small ratios of 3:1. >> >> Of course eventually at some point the customer runs one of those >> stupid bandwidth test on the Internet and the results are woefully >> inaccurate (not in our favor)...but of course customers take the >> results as gospel. AAARRRRGGGGHHHH! >> >> It's not our internet connections, we have three 100Mbps BGP links and >> none of them run at more then 50% during peak loads. >> >> Has anyone else found those Internet speed test to be woefully >> inaccurate? Or is something else going on that I'm missing? >> >> Thanks, >> Bret >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wireless mailing list >> Wireless@wispa.org >> http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > -- > Jack Unger - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. > Author (2003) - "Deploying License-Free Wireless Wide-Area Networks" > Serving the WISP Community since 1993 > www.ask-wi.com 760-678-5033jun...@ask-wi.com > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wireless mailing list > Wireless@wispa.org > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > -- Ing. Paolo Di Francesco Level7 s.r.l. unipersonale Sede operativa: Largo Montalto, 5 - 90144 Palermo C.F. e P.IVA 05940050825 Fax : +39-091-8772072 assistenza: (+39) 091-8776432 web: http://www.level7.it _______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list Wireless@wispa.org http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
