Marlon has the right idea. I have been looking at what AT&T is doing to lay the groundwork for pay-as-you-go bandwidth - you can see some of their 'informational' videos on YouTube - and essentially they are setting a really high limit on usage in GB terms, and then billing above that so as to hit the bandwidth hogs.
They are phasing it in, and giving people usage meters and alerts to show their usage patterns, but it all leads to having a way for them to tackle the small minority who take an outsize share of the bandwidth, and I have to say they do a good job of making that point clear in those videos. Next year we will also introduce the same sort of tiered fair-use/flat rate plans to enable us to segment the customer base, and most likely do that in the same way as they are. Daniel Marlon Schafer (509.982.2181) <o...@odessaoffice.com> wrote .. > Offer a choice to them. > > $100++ for a speed limited but bit “unlimited” (read that to mean high > threshold) > plan. > > Or, $40 for a lower usage plan with smaller steps for higher than average but > non > disruptive customers. > > And remember, the high usage customers are costing more than they are paying. > You are better off to loose x% of your customer base than to keep them. > > Pass those folks to your competition and let them die trying to figure out how > to support them. > > And never forget, we are not the only ones having this problem. The big guys > are > feeling it far worse than we are, we just don’t hear about it as much. And in > the next few years the compression mechanisms will get better, AP’s will start > to ship with built in cache systems, more data will fit down the same pipe > etc. > We’ll be able to deliver these services to people sooner than later, just have > to stay in business long enough to let the technologies catch up to what the > markets > are really asking for. > > marlon > > > > From: Joe Miller > Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 8:18 AM > To: 'WISPA General List' > Subject: Re: [WISPA] packaging suggestions > > 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. > > > > I’m 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 let’s 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, it’s 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 didn’t 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 it’s > 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 don’t 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. Don’t 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, what’s 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 > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > Wireless mailing list > Wireless@wispa.org > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
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