BTW, back around 1976 I worked for a company that made TV sets for Sears and KMart. We had samples of TV set from all the competitors, including European manufacturers like Philips. The European sets looked like a Tektronix oscilloscope inside, very different from the American and Japanese sets where cutting a penny of cost was a big deal. I was told the difference was that most Europeans (at that time, I’m guessing it’s different now) leased their TV rather than buying. So the decision makers were the leasing companies, and they wanted reliable equipment that could come back off lease, get a minor cleaning, and go back out to another customer. Take abuse and last forever.
From: Ken Hohhof Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2016 12:09 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] WISP ethics That WNR1000 is a horrible selection to be selling a customer in 2016, at any price. But I think this WISP may come to regret it because when you sell someone a router for $80 and they also have monthly Internet service from you, they are going to expect you to stand behind the router and replace it if it dies. I know, I know, not a big deal if you are buying them for $10. But I will no longer sell people routers. I will lease them a managed router, and it is going to be a decent router if I am going to support it. From: Eric Kuhnke Sent: Monday, August 22, 2016 9:01 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] WISP ethics This is not a WISP that competes with me in any way... It's actually a family member's new last mile connection, where the bill looks like: NRC $several hundred dollars - CPE radio $165 - new customer one time installation fee $80 router purchase MRC $85 monthly for a reasonably high quota service I think that the price disparity between the actual market value of the router ($11 to $15 on ebay with free shipping included in the price) and what they sold it for is so wide that it's just wrong. I can see buying a $75 basic 802.11ac router and selling it for $100, or even $110... But not this. On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 6:23 PM, Trey Scarborough <[email protected]> wrote: I agree if they are selling the router along with installing it for $80 and they are not selling it as a new router I don't see the problem. Its a $10 plus say $10 for shipping and $60 to install it. If that was geek squad the bill would probably come out to $300... I agree if this is a competitor just sell a better faster router for less with install. On 8/22/2016 8:07 PM, Lewis Bergman wrote: If this is your competition, I encourage you to forget about it. Nothing productive will come of it. On Mon, Aug 22, 2016, 7:33 PM Josh Luthman <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: That doesn't really answer the questions though. Sounds like the second one kinda... Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 On Aug 22, 2016 7:47 PM, "Eric Kuhnke" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: A CPE radio was installed and aimed, ubnt PoE injector put in place, and the router connected to the LAN side of the PoE... The CPE radio installation was its own installation service charge and equipment fee separate from the $80 line item for the router. On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 4:00 PM, Josh Luthman <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: If it's sold as new? That's wrong. If it's sold as a service (go to house, install router, leave)? That's fine. If it's sold as a used product? That's fine. Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 <tel:937-552-2340> Direct: 937-552-2343 <tel:937-552-2343> 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 6:57 PM, Eric Kuhnke <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Many WISPs rent routers or sell home wifi routers to their customers. Some routers are used pulls from other customers, get factory defaulted and configured for new customers. Nothing wrong with this. If you saw a WISP that was taking used routers from customer pulls and re-selling them to another customer at $80/piece, and that router was this exact model: http://www.ebay.com/itm/NETGEAR-WNR1000-WIRELESS-N-N150-WIRELESS-ROUTER-RANGEMAX-4-PORT-SWITCH-/171392676852?hash=item27e7ccb3f4:g:D8sAAOSwKPNTzDRY Would you consider it to be ethically questionable? I could not in good conscience sell such a feeble, obsolete $10 router for $80. This is not a 'rented' router, this was an actual purchase line item on a customer invoice.
