Jerry,
Lastime you said that you didnt use any BAM hardware/software, just relay on canopy sustained/burst speed. Why?
20 user at 512kbps will overwhelmed your T1 trunk, the cost of T1 is not enough by 20 users monthly fee. didnt you expect to do something more than to give “real” 512kbps/20 users? or maybe put 512kbps/50 users to make more profit , offcourse with packeteer or allot, or whatever bandwidth management hardware?
You seem have lots of experience in giving service that telcos not giving, why didnt you sell Volume Based (download quota/month, than charge after quota reached) ?
what is excatly the core of wisp? is it the service? or the price? or the quality equipment? whats your oppinion?
Do you have any competitors that offered cheaper price with the same service, or excatly copy cat all your products? how could you overcome this situation?
Do you really need 24x7x365 monitoring actually? i think this service is wasting your money and your time because usually corporate user dont have any activity at night?
How did you manage your marketing team? did you divide your region and assign your marketing to find any potential customer?
have you ever heard about www.air-lok.com ? i saw their white papers, and look like damn good box. just buy 3 adsl link + 1xT1 and put in the box, the box can automatically use round robin to find the best path, etc…
Regards,
mnet
Lastime you said that you didnt use any BAM hardware/software, just relay on canopy sustained/burst speed. Why?
Cost and Reliability. BAM is costly, BAM requires Linux which I just don’t want to learn, and requires a computer which WILL fail.
By using the SM to manage bandwidth, we distribute the workload across the SM’s. So far it has proven to work extremely well. In my mind it is no more difficult to change a subscribers bandwidth by setting it in the SM than if I had to go to a central server.
20 user at 512kbps will overwhelmed your T1 trunk, the cost of T1 is not enough by 20 users monthly fee. didnt you expect to do something more than to give “real” 512kbps/20 users? or maybe put 512kbps/50 users to make more profit , offcourse with packeteer or allot, or whatever bandwidth management hardware?
You can oversubscribe a T1 more than you realize. Your assumption of 20 users @ 512 assumes that all users are downloading at 512 at the same time.
Since a 256k connection is considered broadband, and 40% of internet users are still on dialup, most websites are built for 256k connections. Typically when you are browsing, each time you click a link your connection speed will ratchet up until the max speed is reached, or the page loads. Usually the page loads faster than the max speed is reached.
If you are downloading a large file, images, etc your connection will reach the max, but it is highly unlikely that all of the users will be downloading at the same time.
I have seen one T1 support 100 students, another T1 currently supports 75 business users, and our network had 80 users on a T1 before it finally saturated. We use PRTG and monitor the load on every node in our network. We watch the router and the backhals the most. Right now we have 110 subs on a 5M connection and are utilizing it about 40% with bursts to 3M.
You seem have lots of experience in giving service that telcos not giving, why didnt you sell Volume Based (download quota/month, than charge after quota reached) ?
Sell against the Telcos with service, experience, and professionalism. The broadband speed is only part of the equation. When your customer calls and gets a warm, friendly, “glad you called, how can I help?” attitude, prompt courteous service calls, and solutions to problems that are not necessarily your responsibility they will not go anywhere else at any price.
We sell 3 services:
59.00 residential
99.00 SOHO
249.00 Business.
Unlimited usage, no strings, no hassles.
what is excatly the core of wisp? is it the service? or the price? or the quality equipment? whats your oppinion?
All of the above, but you cannot beat a company who’s mantra is SERVICE, SERVICE, SERVICE. Of course that means you build a solid network with equipment that won’t fail, you have a fast response to issues, and a fast snappy network, etc.
Do you have any competitors that offered cheaper price with the same service, or excatly copy cat all your products? how could you overcome this situation?
Sure, DSL, Cable, etc. Simple, don’t compete. We looked at what is costs to deploy a customer and how fast we wanted to meet ROI. We stick to it. Our focus is business customers. We can offer support that telcos can only dream about.
Example: A customer calls a Telco because the connection is crawling. The tech support person trobleshoots it to the customer’s router and finds that it has failed. That’s the end of the call.
A customer calls us, we troubleshoot it down to the router. Call isn’t over. “Would you like us to come out and replace it? It’s a billable service call, but while we are there we will check your computer for viruses, and make sure everything is working perfectly.” Charge 150.00 for the service call and the router. You are a hero. If there are viruses, offer to clean out the machine. Whip out your trusty thumbnail drive with your tools and go to work. 75.00 per hour, usually takes 2 hours. That’s 300.00 for about 3 hours work AND you are an even biger hero because they areup and running and didn’t have to go anywhere or fight with it.
Go after T1 customers who have expired contracts. Offer double the speed for half the cost. NO CONTRACTS, let the service stand on it’s own, or waive the 299.00 setup fee with a 1year agreement. Offer a 2 week money back, no hassle guarantee. Look for commercial business pockets in your coverage area that cannot get good DSL and have no cable. They are likely paying 149/mo for a 144k connection.
Do you really need 24x7x365 monitoring actually? i think this service is wasting your money and your time because usually corporate user dont have any activity at night?
You are correct. I don’t need a body watching the system. We have software running 24x7x365. We are awake 16-18 hours a day. If a customers connection goes down, we get an alert. During business hours, when we get an alert we can do something about it. At night it doesn’t matter.
If a customers connecion goes down, I probably know it before they do. Imagine their surprise when I call them and ask if they turned something off becasue the connection went down, before they can call me and tell me it’s down.
How did you manage your marketing team? did you divide your region and assign your marketing to find any potential customer?
We use computer stores, computer consultants, and word of mouth. We have no marketing team, I’m it. Leverage your resources, offer the computer stores a spiff. Train their guys on how the network works, the advantages, etc. They know who has what and how well it works. If they get $$ for getting the customer a better circuit, it’s a win, win, win.
have you ever heard about www.air-lok.com ? i saw their white papers, and look like damn good box. just buy 3 adsl link + 1xT1 and put in the box, the box can automatically use round robin to find the best path, etc…
Don’t know anything about it.
2 thumbs up for the explanation.
Ill learn from your experience…
regards,
Mnet