Joe, for 1 reason, you have the fact that others are already doing it. My AT&T
6 meg / 768 k circuit started out at unmetered for $19.99 per month. Then it
went to 29.99 per month. Then came the 150 gig cap and $ 10 per each additional
50 gigs, then the base rate went to $34.95, and with my overages (Netflix) I
ended up paying $55 per month. I started shopping, and Charter cable does the
same cap, but no overage, they reserve the right to up your tier or cancel your
service. I ended up going Charter small business with 20 meg down and 3 meg up
advertised, and 5 static IPs with no caps for $ 99.00 per month.
Are your clients going to push back? Yes, some of them will. Are some of them
going to cancel service? Same answer.You just need to figure out the best way
to get from here to there.
John
Joe Miller <joe.mil...@dslbyair.com> wrote:
>Joe,
>
>
>
>I do agree that usage based billing is the way to go. However, when our
>system was originally built 10 years ago, it was done so on the
>unlimited
>platform. The customers that we have I believe will respond in a
>negative
>way to the change. So how can we migrate a unlimited system to a UBB
>system
>without for a better word, piss off the existing customer base. I have
>thought about this for quite some time and the billing system I have in
>place can handle running both at the same time. What would be a good
>price
>point per gig of bandwidth? From looking at the current customer usage
>I
>think using $1.00 per gig would be a good starting point for
>discussion.
>Some customers will see a reduction in monthly cost while most will see
>an
>increase in their monthly service. I can see how we can re coup the
>cost of
>bandwidth a lot easier.
>
>
>
>I would like to come up with an email for my customers to ask them
>what
>they think in regards to having virtually as much bandwidth as they can
>use
>in exchange for billing for that usage. Basically, caped speed with
>flat
>rate vs uncapped speed with metered rate.
>
>
>
>Im looking at expanding into a new area and using the UBB platform
>will be
>a lot easier to start out with, but changing out the current customer
>base
>to UBB will be a bigger pill to swallow.
>
>
>
>I think that this is a good discussion for a session in Vegas.
>
>
>
>We have hundreds of companies that are members of WISPA, and I think
>with
>enough minds on this that we can come up with a good solution for
>everyone.
>
>
>
>Regards,
>
>
>
>Joe Miller
>
>www.dslbyair.com
>
>www.facebook.com/dslbyair
>
>228-831-8881
>
>
>
>From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On
>Behalf Of Joe Fiero
>Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 9:17 AM
>To: 'WISPA General List'
>Subject: Re: [WISPA] packaging suggestions
>
>
>
>I believe Fred to be correct. Packages based on speed are not the
>answer.
>We call our connection a pipe, so lets use a related analogy;
>
>
>
>You can have two homes with water service. One is an older home that
>has a
>½ inch water main, the other is new construction and has a 1 inch
>service
>main.
>
>
>
>House number 1 has the original fixtures, so the toilet uses 6 gallons
>per
>flush, the shower flow is 7 gallons per minute and the clothes washer
>uses
>40-55 gallons per load.
>
>
>
>House number two, being built under new codes that promote conservation
>has
>a low flow toilet that will use 1.6 2 gallons per flush, a low flow
>shower
>head that restricts flow to 2.5 gallons per minute and a new clothes
>washer
>that uses 20 gallons per load.
>
>
>
>With a family of 5 in each house, its easy to see that , despite the
>smaller service pipe, that house number 1 will have many times the
>water
>usage as house number 2. A smaller pipe did nothing to control the
>flow
>because the flow limit of the pipe was not reached.
>
>
>
>Those two pipes are exactly like a 3 meg and 5 meg Internet connection.
>Within reason, the size of the pipe will do little to limit heavy
>bandwidth
>usage. It only serves to spread it out, creating a longer period of
>time
>that it puts a demand on our networks.
>
>
>
>Like most, we saw our network performance begin to deteriorate as
>Netflix
>switched from a physical to a digital delivery system. The others
>since
>then have continued to slow our once speedy connections. Now we, as an
>industry, are faced with a continued rebuild to meet a voracious demand
>for
>bandwidth to deliver content that we never intended, or anticipated.
>Worse
>yet, we are being positioned to provide these improvements to support
>the
>business model of companies that barely acknowledge our existence.
>
>
>
>And they are getting smarter in their use of our pipes. There was a
>time
>when if you didnt have a good 4.5 meg flow, Netflix would not stream.
>They
>have gone to much more advanced encoding that will adjust to feeds of
>less
>than 2 megs, rendering a 3 meg rate limit useless in defending against
>them.
>
>
>
>The issue of Net Neutrality somehow became synonymous with no caps. It
>appears we are the only service that is viewed by consumers and
>governments
>that should be given away. Services like water, natural gas and
>electricity
>are each brought to a home and metered for actual usage, because it is
>the
>only fair way for those that use these services to pay their fair
>share. In
>most locals, the billing is specifically broken down into two parts.
>The
>first addresses the base cost of the connection to the property, and
>the
>second reflects the cost of the metered usage.
>
>
>
>How is Internet different? We are a service that delivers a commodity
>to be
>used and never recovered. The bits of data we move for our subscribers
>are
>no different than the kilowatt, gallon or therm moved by the others.
>Could
>you imagine if consumers demanded there be no metering on these
>services?
>
>
>
>We are being restricted by network limits from delivering the full pipe
>to
>subscribers. This limitation is a function of cost. Under our current
>structures we cannot justify the cost of building a large pipe to each
>subscriber. After all, we are an industry built on contention. This
>sharing of bandwidth was the impetus of the WISP business for many
>years,
>but that concept has outlived its usefulness. Our subscribers no
>longer
>want to surf the web or check email. Most now do that on their smart
>phones. No, our pipe has become an unwilling player on the next
>pervasive
>shift in the paradigm, as subscription video shifts to a digital
>delivery
>medium.
>
>
>
>Just as VoIP has been disruptive to POTS, and satellite was to cable,
>we are
>on the cusp of the next trend in consumer electronics. Televisions
>today
>are being built with Ethernet ports and wireless networking. They are
>coming with built in apps for all the streaming services. And they
>want all
>this to work over OUR pipes.
>
>
>
>So we need to face reality and understand that if we dont provide
>these
>services, we have become useless to our subscribers. Our failure to
>respond
>to this trend will throw the doors open for someone to come in to our
>markets and pluck each of our hard earned subscribers until we are
>decimated
>and a faint memory. If you think subscribers are satisfied with basic
>Internet services today, you are in denial.
>
>
>
>The answer is we need to build out robust networks that can deliver
>copious
>amounts of bandwidth to our subscribers. Our repayment will come by
>employing the time proven practice of metering for usage.
>
>
>
>We can divide our subscribers into two groups. The cutting edge-tech
>savvy
>type that is creating our issues, and the rest who will be joining
>them. I
>am sure that most of us have similar network statistics. If I look at
>one
>of my network segments I have the top 4 users consuming 25% of all
>bandwidth. I hit 50% at the 13th subscriber. This is a change in
>trend.
>It used to be just 8 that consumed 50%. And yes, bandwidth consumption
>has
>increased accordingly. This change from 8 to 13 subscribers being in
>the
>top 50% indicates my high usage subscribers have increased by 120% in
>roughly the past 6 months. Post holiday season I expect to see at
>least a
>300% increase in my high usage subscribers, which without changes to my
>network, will bring data flow to a standstill.
>
>
>
>So build and meter. Dont ignore the elephant in the room referenced
>earlier in this discussion. Just look at copper phone lines that
>peaked at
>186 million in 2004 which today number about 84 million. In just 9
>years,
>pureplay VoIP, cable VoIP and cellular technologies caused a 55% shift
>in a
>once-thought untouchable market.
>
>
>
>Joe
>
>
>
>
>
>From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On
>Behalf Of Fred Goldstein
>Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 5:55 PM
>To: wireless@wispa.org
>Subject: Re: [WISPA] packaging suggestions
>
>
>
>On 9/25/2013 1:00 PM, heith petersen wrote:
>
>I just got off the phone with a customer. I made some adjustments to
>his SM
>the other day to make netflix work. He called back today to tell me it
>works
>good but his direct tv showtime package is OK but not great. I kind of
>wanted to ask him what the hell gives dish net the right to sell you a
>service that rides on my back bone where I do not make anymore money
>for
>your additional use of my service. Anyways I got that off my chest.
>
>
>
>So our situation has been for years residential customers pay a flat
>rate,
>we have no speed or usage based packages. When the customer calls about
>netflix I make throttle adjustments in the SM to make them happy. Well
>eventually I have an overloaded AP, then I have to either sectorize or
>add a
>different frequency, add higher capacity BHs out of my pocket, just to
>keep
>my customers happy at the same price we have been charging for 10
>years. (We
>recently, since going to new billing service, added a $2 paper fee for
>non
>emailed invoices and I get crucified by the same customers every
>month).
>Ideally I want to get away from mechanical throttles.
>
>
>
>We are in the middle running our authentication thru our new billing
>system,
>and converting bridged to fully routed. You know, the things we should
>have
>been doing from day one. Anyways, once we get things squared away,
>whats a
>common practice on doing packages? If you have basic customers out
>there
>that do not stream or use tons of bandwidth would you keep them at the
>current rate, or drop the rate and throttle them tight? I would assume
>that
>we would want to offer an increased package to known streamers, maybe
>throttle them down to a basic level and wait to hear from them when
>they are
>willing to upgrade their package? I would then anticipate that making
>the
>expenditures to provide them with the service would be worth the
>venture.
>
>
>
>Anyways just looking for some suggestions. There is always time to do
>it
>right the second time around
>
>http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
>
>
>This is a really big problem for WISPs. Streaming high-quality video
>has
>been the potential elephant in the room of the ISP business for a long
>time.
>It is finally starting to show up in the room, thanks to Netflix, Hulu,
>and
>others like them.
>
>Poisoning the well is the public's paranoia about cable companies, who
>usually have ample Internet capacity (fiber to a major peering point;
>high
>capacity HFC networks). So if they do anything to limit streaming,
>it's
>seen as an anti-competitive trick, to get people to buy more channels.
>This
>may or may not be true, but that's the public perception, which was a
>major
>driver of the "network neutrality" kerfuffle now in court.
>
>Of course most WISPs are nothing like cable! But the public doesn't
>see the
>difference, and if the FCC gains authority over WISPs (which they
>shouldn't
>have, by law, but what's the law when the public wants their circuses,
>I
>mean teevee?), then if WISPs do anything that selectively blocks video,
>or
>even UDP, it might be seen as a violation. So your legal authority to
>act
>is in question. And who is leading the appeal against the law?
>Verizon,
>who is actually behind it (since it hurts Comcast more than them).
>Hence
>their arguments are on the lame side. The only things going for us in
>the
>DC Circuit are that the DC Circuit dislikes the FCC in general, and the
>FCC
>did a really bad job in claiming the authority.
>
>Thus the "neutral" answer is to move towards bandwidth caps. This to
>me
>makes more sense, to a WISP, than a rate-based price tier. Somebody
>can
>burst at 10 Mbps once in a while and put little load on the network,
>but
>somebody watching TV at 3 Mbps all day will clobber you.
>Gigabytes/month
>represents a monthly average load. If you do this, you can raise
>everyone's
>base rate to the max. Cellular does this.
>
>But there are two very different approaches taken even by cellcos when
>the
>cap is reached. If you are on VZ, ATT or Sprint, you are charged extra
>when
>you exceed the cap. A lot extra. This leads people to buy bigger
>plans
>than they need, just to be sure they don't hit the cap. If on the
>other
>hand you're on T-Mobile, once you hit the cap your data is throttled
>WAY
>down to EDGE speeds (around 80 kbps if the wind is from the west), but
>they
>don't charge more.
>
>So my gut feeling is that the best strategy for dealing with pink-eyed
>elephants is to move to usage-based plans. Look at the actual monthly
>usage
>for each customer and see how many would fall into any given tier, if
>you
>draw tiers. Set it up so that few people pay more than now, but those
>who
>watch TV will. Something like 50 GB/month is probably a typical heavy
>web
>surfer who likes YouTube (which is not streaming) and has their share
>of
>Microsoft Updates to deal with, but only watches a little streaming.
>It's
>the 100+ GB users you want to ding. But you can create a low-cost plan
>(say, <10 GB) for those who mainly need just email and web. It still
>beats
>mobile.
>
>Throttling T-Mobile style (say, down to 512/256k, not 80/24k) seems
>more
>friendly to me than hitting someone with a big bill. That would be
>"neutral" but block TV. And you could even let people "bank" last
>month's
>unused quota (AT&T does this with minutes, right?) for those special
>occasions (like the Breaking Bad finale), if your software can handle
>it.
>But a bill-based system is easier to implement... at least if you don't
>count post-bill customer calls.
>
>I wish there were an easy answer but this is going to be a big issue so
>it's
>good that you're bringing it up for discussion.
>
>--
> Fred R. Goldstein k1io fred "at" interisle.net
> Interisle Consulting Group
> +1 617 795 2701
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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