The only way to make this price doable is if it is a router too like
Netonix's new device.
Keefe
On 10/5/2014 4:08 PM, Forrest Christian (List Account) via Af 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?
