I'd say you are correct. Would love to have the functionality but even at $75 I couldn't justify the cost. On Oct 5, 2014 5:08 PM, "Forrest Christian (List Account) via Af" < [email protected]> wrote:
> Following up on the previous email about product ideas, I have an idea for > a product which at least I think would be really cool, but I also think > would likely be a big flop, just because of the apparent cost sensitivity > of installs. > > It seems to me that it would be nice to replace the power injector at > customer sites with more of an intelligent device. One that provides > functionality like traffic metering, cable diagnostics, customer-location > speed tests, and so on. The unit would have jacks for the radio, the > customer equipment, and power. It would also have a display which shows > real-time usage data for the customer to be able to determine for > themselves what their current internet consumption is. There are a lot of > natural outgrowths from this such as watchdog reset of the radio itself, > automatic problem notification to the WISP, etc. My goal would be to > instrument this as much as possible. > > If you think of this as a 'smart power meter' for internet, with > diagnostic tools built in, then you've got the basic idea. This is not > intended to replace the customer router/nat device, and will only be a > Layer 2 device as far as traffic goes. There will likely be some limited > traffic shaping possible based on the underlying ethernet swtich chipset. > > Unfortunately, these can't be a $20 device. $75 might be doable for > higher volumes, but $100 is more in the comfort zone for the volumes I > typically move. Of course, this is a CPE device and I'm not even sure how > many I'd sell so these prices are guesses at best - but more likely to go > down instead of up. > > Although I suspect most people would love to have one of these at each > install, I have a hard time believing that most people would swallow adding > even $75 to the cost of each install, let alone the $100 which might be the > price I'd have to hit for lower volume. Is this a fair assumption? Would > you add such a device to each install? > > > > >
