I saw in a thread that someone would like to see lower priced SM’s.
NO YOU WOULDN’T
If every Tom dick and Harry has cheap access to Canopy, what do you think will happen to your spectrum when 9 different people light up AP’s in your area and start selling service?
The pricing is a barrier to entry in the market. It forces WISPS to have a solid business plan and to think about the market they are going to service.
I say keep the prices where they are.
well i of course was one to complain about prices…but with that valid point i guess i cant argue it…good game jerry - 1/ vince - 0 
I agree. Except when it is time to buy sm’s
then why a huge difference between normal and Advantage platform !
The difference in cost is that the Advantage represents a major improvement in performance.
It does not change how the available spectrum is used. You can still only have a certain number of AP’s in a given area.
I would like to see much cheaper SM’s.
Canopy isn’t’ the only player in the wireless world and the other guys are getting cheaper all the time. So expect competition to start showing up that can roll out to your customers for 1/2 or less than it costs you. That means customers in your area will have to pick between your $200 - $300 installation and multi year contracts with you or the other guy with free - $100.00 installations and shorter contracts.
The SM price doesn’t stop anyone from setting up it POP, it just stops them from using Motorola Canopy to do it.
Jerry, I usually consider your opinions to be extremely knowledgeable and useful but in this case you’re so wrong it’s not even funny; it’s even scary, as these “keep prices high” attitudes hurt us Canopy users in general (due to interference and competition from crappier, cheaper systems).
Let me remind you that there are companies other than Motorola selling WISP equipment or components. Unlike Motorola, these companies don’t discourage external amplifiers, or make sure that all their designs conform to FCC standards (e.g. almost any 802.11-supplier company will sell you a crappy linksys AP, a 2W amp and a 15dbi too-thin-pattern omni even though assembling these together will lead to an overpowered, underperforming network.) Also, these systems don’t have Motorola’s GPS-sync system which can be used to reduce interference among WISPs in an area.
If Canopy prices are too high, few people will say “oh, we can’t afford the well-designed, lesser-interference equipment, so I guess we need a better business plan”. No, they’ll say “let’s look at the cheaper stuff; it ‘works’!”. And they will. And they will buy it, and they will run it at high powers (since it needs a better C/I ratio than Canopy) and it will cause more interference (no GPS sync). These last 2 factors will harm everyone in the region.
And while the above harm everyone, the Canopy WISPs are additionally burdened by high equipment costs - which the other, cheaper WISPs don’t have - and need to pass these on to their customers, few of which usually consider Canopy equipment’s superior design. Bottom line, Canopy users still LOSE. And I think that sucks.
CStan hit it on the nose.
Good points, and you’re entitled to your opinion about my being wrong. However you need to look at the whole equation.
Quality of Service = Retention of customers.
The lesser quality stuff works, but does not really work that well. Those companies doing it on the cheap will come and go as they will not be able to provide the QOS that customers want. Those who use the higher quality platform will survive.
If some yahoo comes along and puts up some gear, I will have to add some nodes to get closer to my customers but that’s life.
We have 100% customer retention over 3 years…Can you say that?
>However you need to look at the whole equation.
I think I do quite well, but whether the customers do is the most important thing. Which leads us to…
>Quality of Service = Retention of customers.
Well, I think it’s more: Quality of Service + high price of switching + perception of value = Retention of customers. More importantly in this discussion, perceived value = acquiring customers.
>The lesser quality stuff works, but does not really work that well.
>Those companies doing it on the cheap will come and go as they will
>not be able to provide the QOS that customers want.
Agreed, completely. But we’re in the industry, we know that. To them, WISP equipment is all dinky white plastic boxes. And money. While these companies come and go, they’ll offer prices that will tempt away our customers and cause interference which will damage our networks.
If the equipment we use (Canopy) were to be of lower cost, we could match these prices better, and the competitors could use it, reducing interference. That is my main point, and I think the most important thing here.
>Those who use the higher quality platform will survive.
These terms are very subjective, and in many cases can be very wrong. The higher-end Orthogon gear is undeniably a higher quality platform than the PtMP 6-10-20mbit canopy stuff, and PtP links are more stable (less interference, higher gain antenas) than PtMP stuff. So that’s your high-quality platform, but if you try to offer service based on those your WISP won’t survive, or will barely do so as a niche player. Why? Because you’ll price yourself out of the market. Few customers would consider your (extremely good) service worthwhile at that price.
I think that “Those who offer the best value will survive.” A higher quality platform “guarantees” survival as a niche high-end player at most. You can try to play that game if you want, but most here want to go the general-users/small-to-mid-size businesses market, which is what I think Motorola wants with their Canopy platform, and what it is currently pricing itself out of.
>If some yahoo comes along and puts up some gear, I will have to
>add some nodes to get closer to my customers but that’s life.
That’ll cost you, and your customers, money. If Canopy prices were lower, it would cost you, and your customers, less of that money; and there’d be a not-bad chance you could convince that yahoo to go with Canopy gear, which you could then configure to prevent interference - so you wouldn’t have to buy additional nodes at all. This would be the best outcome for you. Aren’t you proving my argument right here?
>We have 100% customer retention over 3 years…Can you say that?
No, and the two that we lost (low signal, they didn’t want to pay for dishes to upgrade; this was before stingers) were solely due to the cost of Canopy equipment. If we used someone else’s equipment, replacing the antennas with higher-gain ones would have cost us about 20-40$ in equipmentper customer; we would have done it for them for free, and kept those customers. For Canopy, we needed to add 250$ reflector dishes - obviously we wouldn’t give those for free, and the customers didn’t want to spend that, so we lost them to other services. Lower Canopy equipment prices would have let us keep them. I’m surprised you haven’t seen much of the same.
Above, you game me 2 arguments in support of your points; I’ve shown that both of them supported my claim - that lower Canopy prices help us, the Canopy WISPs - better than yours. What do you think?
-Colin (who needs to get back to paying work now that Winnipeg is nice…)
Maybe I am out of my mind.
220.00 for a radio as solid and reliable as a Canopy 2.4/5.7 just does not seem out of the question to me. I just don’t want to give up performance for a lower cost radio. I could get the same reliability by using a Canopy Lite, but my customers want more BW than that.
What you are proposing is that we get the same performance at half the cost. I guess I would not mind that, but if I had 3-4 other guys with Canopy in my area I would have some serious problems as there is not enough spectrum to support multiple Canopy operators.
So, given the option of a barrier to entry and multiple operators, I’ll take the barrier to entry. 299 install + prorated first month means that for even our 59.00 residential customers we see a ROI in 3 months. Business customers ROI in 1 - 2 months.
I agree maybe they should be more expensive.
We have atleast 4 other motorola providers in our area plus clearwire, and that doesn’t include the cheap equipment.
I figure it won’t take long before some of them start giving it away. Two of them already do install for $50.00
We have a good base and solid rep. we aren’t hurting just not growing as fast as we were
Jerry:
>220.00 for a radio as solid and reliable as a Canopy 2.4/5.7
>just does not seem out of the question to me.
220$ is definitely not out of the question; it’s a bit high, but I’d say 150$-200$ is a fine good-quality CPE price range. If it was possible to get Canopy CPEs for that 220$ easily, I’d have no complaints; but in my experience it damn isn’t - not long ago we (my small primary WISP) were paying 400-500$ per Canopy CPE, and I think the cheapest now is 250$ without antenna (which is +100$ after shipping, etc.) - or 350$ intergrated. And that’s with big volume discounts. Let’s say 400$-450$ per CPE for a small 2-dozen-CPE WISP setup, or 550-600$ incl. reflector dish. Those are not reasonable in my opinion.
When I was considering starting up a small WISP a few months ago those prices made me decide to go with my own equipment instead: [high-quality, good 5.7ghz CPE: Routerboard+(cm9 radio or ubnt sr5 radio) + 25dbi antenna + case: 120$ + (60$ or 120$) + 60$ + 30$= 270$ or 330$. This includes the high-gain antenna, and so is equivalent to a Canopy+ reflector dish. Throughput, assuming good network design, is higher than canopy Advantage.] This high-quality CPE would be half the price, yet have better throughput and receive sensitivity than the Canopy CPEs; the APs are also much cheaper, and note that the system woudn’t run 802.11a, but the well-designed nstreme polling protocol with channels from 5 to 20mhz.
>I just don’t want to give up performance for a lower cost radio.
Me neither. But considering current pricing from other manufacturers, I do not think Motorola would have to give it up to bring prices near the magical 150-200$ mark.
>I could get the same reliability by using a Canopy Lite, but my
>customers want more BW than that.
Agreed; I think 512kbit isn’t enough for most applications.
>What you are proposing is that we get the same performance at half
the cost.
>I guess I would not mind that, but if I had 3-4 other guys with Canopy in my area
>I would have some serious problems as there is not enough spectrum to support multiple Canopy operators.
If you had 3-4 other guys with anything in your area you’d have problems (assuming ISM bands). Motorola Canopy pricing is not much, if any, of a deterrent to this. It will not help. But that pricing will make it harder for you to compete against those competitors.
>So, given the option of a barrier to entry and multiple operators, I’ll take
>the barrier to entry. 299 install + prorated first month means that for
>even our 59.00 residential customers we see a ROI in 3 months.
>Business customers ROI in 1 - 2 months.
You do not have the choice of “barrier to entry”. Neither does Motorola, except against their own customers. Trango sells CPEs now for 150$, although I consider them less reliable than Canopy they are still considered a close competitor. Therefore, if you choose Canopy but your competitor uses other products of a third the price, the only non-technical barrier here is price, against you.
And that, as depressing as it is, is my argument.
-C
well here is a scenario i have invested everything i have in this maxed out all my credit cards my business is got a second morgage on it maxed out.
i am the only wireless dealer with in 60 miles of here. i have 70 customers 4 towers and 20 modules left to install with a waiting list of 60 something. now what do i do? i figure my investment on the towers will be paid off in 6 months. but i will have those 20 put in with in the next few weeks. So see cheaper prices would help me.
and i don’t want investors i like making my own decisions and i have a 100% customer retension also.
the only reason i see to keep the prices high is because if i decide to sell i can get a big majority of my investment back. if they drop too much you will be lucky to sell one on ebay for 100 bucks.
If anything atleast drop the prices on the ap’s
kmeadows
these are all very valid points, but the canopy pricing is hitting me very hard…
I work at a wisp in africa, and getting canopy radios here is not an easy game. We pay no less than US600 per SM, before shipping costs!!!
we have had to go as far as finding an alternative to the motorola reflector dish, just so that we dont have to buy the original one.
So far we use a 60cm dish (normally used for sattelite tv), with a custom made mounting arm for the SM to sit on. These are costing us the equivalent of CAD$40, which is cheaper and less of a hassle, given that i have to wait a minimum of 3 weeks for any order of motorola stuff to be shipped.
There are quite a few wisps all using other equipment, solektec, trango etc…so this forces us to have a very competitive install price. So far we are only winning clients over by offering an install charge of +/- CAD$310 as opposed to what we were charging when we first started CAD$ 600.
So its a bit hectic for us…
Getting pretty desperate if you actually find yourself wanting to pay more for equipment because you think it will stop others from trying to compete with you.
Desperate? Can you please explain that?
In my oppinion,
High price for barrier entry is a good point actually. As long as motorola still upgrade their hardware/firmware regular.
What we need actually is (very)high price for AP with lots of features and low price for SM. Lots of features including high power AP, good C/I ratio, Bandwidth Management, etc…
my 2 cents
I would jump all over a more expensive AP if it resulted in a much less expensive SM. Back in the day when we first started dial-up it wasn’t anything to drop $45Kon a system that would only handle 24 users. But customers could get 14.4k modems for about $50.00 or even less.
I would be all over a $40,000.00 AP if it would get me $40.00 - $50.00 SM’s.