Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or isitgettingbetter?
We do. As well all other Tycon Power items. /Eje Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile -Original Message- From: Josh Luthman j...@imaginenetworksllc.com Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:46:40 To: WISPA General Listwireless@wispa.org Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Someone sells those on this list... http://www.wlanparts.com/product/TP-UPS-DC-12-9/UPS_Pro__Outdoor_UPS_with_Die_Cast_Enclosure_12V_9AH.html Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 When you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the truth. --- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Tom DeReggi wirelessn...@rapiddsl.netwrote: Ryan, I agree completely, and sympathise for the situation. But does your customer know that? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Ryan Ghering rgher...@gmail.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 11:51 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Ohh agreed, redundant upstream is a must. However when a DS3 costs over 10 grand a month to get out of this area to a NON-Qwest system ( not including bandwidth ), for true redundancy it makes it not feasible. We are trying to engineer a wireless backhaul out, but its taking some time to do so. Its funny folks in the extreme rural areas, seem to think that we WISP's and ISP's should have the same access to bandwidth and pricing as Metro guys do. Yet, my cost per meg plus transport is about 280.00 per meg total, however even in a city like Greeley, Colorado, you can get bandwidth plus transport for around 50.00 a meg or less. Its the burden of being a rural isp. Ohh and the customer still wants 20 meg down 5 meg up for 20 bucks a month, and it damn well better work 24/7 or its the end of the world lol Ryan On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 9:30 AM, Travis Johnson t...@ida.net wrote: Technically, yes, this was your fault. The customer is paying YOU for service... not qwest. If you can't provide the service (regardless of the reason), then it's your fault. In our regional area, the ABC affiliate stopped selling to DISH Network last year over the contract price. So if you had DISH (which I did), you could no longer get ABC at all. This went on for over 6 months. Do you think everyone was mad at ABC or DISH? DISH is the one that had to start giving credits and take all the phone calls. You HAVE to have at least two separate upstreams or you are just asking for these kind of problems. Travis Microserv Ryan Ghering wrote: Yesterday, we had a long term upstream outage. Someone in Qwest killed our ATM upstream and somehow we were getting crosstalk to another ATM PVC. (Don't ask nobody can tell me how this was done). In the mean time customers are calling us screaming that they need their net. Our staff politely informs them all day long that this isn't a issue with us, its upstream. Some customers accept that and move on for the day. However the kicker!! One of our customers which is a dedicated 3 meg calls up and asks, Are you down I say yes at this time the internet is down due to a problem with qwest in Denver. The customer says ok, do you have an ETA? I tell him no not at this time the problem is with qwest not with us. Customer says ok thanks and hangs up. Not 20 minutes later I get a phone call from the customer, he's mad as hell and spitting nails. I only caught about 1/2 of what he had said. But it sounded like. Your a damn lier, I call qwest, they have NO issues anywhere. I want my ** Net or you can kiss my account goodbye a**hole.. Then he hangs up. ( mind you this is a business customer ) I call him back about an hour later and he says he's canceled. And will get service from somewhere else. How can this be? How was this my fault? Customers are irrational and stupid.. Agreed. lol Ryan On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 1:58 AM, Marlon K. Schafer o...@odessaoffice.com o...@odessaoffice.comwrote: roflol Rick this is a GOOD thing Your customers call you for all problems because YOU WILL ANSWER THE PHONE!! Sometimes great service levels suck. lol marlon - Original Message - From: Rick Kunze rku...@colusanet.com rku...@colusanet.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 5:40 PM Subject: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is it gettingbetter? Customer calls just now. They ask if the Internet is having trouble, I reply that there are no outages. She then says she called a couple of her friends in neighboring towns and they were all down too.
Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or isitgettingbetter?
Yeah, I saw that post the other day. That outdoor UPS enclosure has my name written all over it :-) It should be great for those one radio serves all suites via CAT5, industrial warehouse style, strip mall style roof installs While on topic...Anyone know. Does that power charger/inverter unit still pass line power to equipment if the battery goes bad? (inline or standby?). Any good ideas on how to tell when the power goes out? For example, if a breaker pops, 24 hours later the battery runs dead and still creates an outage, if you don;t know power was cut. One suggestion made was setup a second cheapo linksys router for $40, and plug that in NOT on the batterty, and then remote monitor that device to tell when power is down. Although, with that unit, it might be hard to fit into the case, and may draw unnecessary current. Any ideas on how to handle that? Do any of teh Mikroik SBCs have i/o slots that can measure results of a relay or something, to help with that? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Josh Luthman j...@imaginenetworksllc.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 7:46 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or isitgettingbetter? Someone sells those on this list... http://www.wlanparts.com/product/TP-UPS-DC-12-9/UPS_Pro__Outdoor_UPS_with_Die_Cast_Enclosure_12V_9AH.html Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 When you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the truth. --- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Tom DeReggi wirelessn...@rapiddsl.netwrote: Ryan, I agree completely, and sympathise for the situation. But does your customer know that? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Ryan Ghering rgher...@gmail.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 11:51 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Ohh agreed, redundant upstream is a must. However when a DS3 costs over 10 grand a month to get out of this area to a NON-Qwest system ( not including bandwidth ), for true redundancy it makes it not feasible. We are trying to engineer a wireless backhaul out, but its taking some time to do so. Its funny folks in the extreme rural areas, seem to think that we WISP's and ISP's should have the same access to bandwidth and pricing as Metro guys do. Yet, my cost per meg plus transport is about 280.00 per meg total, however even in a city like Greeley, Colorado, you can get bandwidth plus transport for around 50.00 a meg or less. Its the burden of being a rural isp. Ohh and the customer still wants 20 meg down 5 meg up for 20 bucks a month, and it damn well better work 24/7 or its the end of the world lol Ryan On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 9:30 AM, Travis Johnson t...@ida.net wrote: Technically, yes, this was your fault. The customer is paying YOU for service... not qwest. If you can't provide the service (regardless of the reason), then it's your fault. In our regional area, the ABC affiliate stopped selling to DISH Network last year over the contract price. So if you had DISH (which I did), you could no longer get ABC at all. This went on for over 6 months. Do you think everyone was mad at ABC or DISH? DISH is the one that had to start giving credits and take all the phone calls. You HAVE to have at least two separate upstreams or you are just asking for these kind of problems. Travis Microserv Ryan Ghering wrote: Yesterday, we had a long term upstream outage. Someone in Qwest killed our ATM upstream and somehow we were getting crosstalk to another ATM PVC. (Don't ask nobody can tell me how this was done). In the mean time customers are calling us screaming that they need their net. Our staff politely informs them all day long that this isn't a issue with us, its upstream. Some customers accept that and move on for the day. However the kicker!! One of our customers which is a dedicated 3 meg calls up and asks, Are you down I say yes at this time the internet is down due to a problem with qwest in Denver. The customer says ok, do you have an ETA? I tell him no not at this time the problem is with qwest not with us. Customer says ok thanks and hangs up. Not 20 minutes later I get a phone call from the customer, he's mad as hell and spitting nails. I only caught about 1/2 of what he had said. But it sounded like. Your a damn lier, I call qwest, they have NO issues anywhere. I want my ** Net or you can kiss my account goodbye a**hole.. Then he hangs up. ( mind you this is a business
Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or isitgettingbetter?
I would use a RB411 as the canary board. cheap, reliable, scriptable, AND has input voltage monitoring Tom DeReggi wrote: snip Any good ideas on how to tell when the power goes out? For example, if a breaker pops, 24 hours later the battery runs dead and still creates an outage, if you don;t know power was cut. One suggestion made was setup a second cheapo linksys router for $40, and plug that in NOT on the batterty, and then remote monitor that device to tell when power is down. Although, with that unit, it might be hard to fit into the case, and may draw unnecessary current. Any ideas on how to handle that? Do any of teh Mikroik SBCs have i/o slots that can measure results of a relay or something, to help with that? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Josh Luthman j...@imaginenetworksllc.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 7:46 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or isitgettingbetter? Someone sells those on this list... http://www.wlanparts.com/product/TP-UPS-DC-12-9/UPS_Pro__Outdoor_UPS_with_Die_Cast_Enclosure_12V_9AH.html Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373 When you have eliminated the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the truth. --- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Tom DeReggi wirelessn...@rapiddsl.netwrote: Ryan, I agree completely, and sympathise for the situation. But does your customer know that? Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Ryan Ghering rgher...@gmail.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 11:51 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or is itgettingbetter? Ohh agreed, redundant upstream is a must. However when a DS3 costs over 10 grand a month to get out of this area to a NON-Qwest system ( not including bandwidth ), for true redundancy it makes it not feasible. We are trying to engineer a wireless backhaul out, but its taking some time to do so. Its funny folks in the extreme rural areas, seem to think that we WISP's and ISP's should have the same access to bandwidth and pricing as Metro guys do. Yet, my cost per meg plus transport is about 280.00 per meg total, however even in a city like Greeley, Colorado, you can get bandwidth plus transport for around 50.00 a meg or less. Its the burden of being a rural isp. Ohh and the customer still wants 20 meg down 5 meg up for 20 bucks a month, and it damn well better work 24/7 or its the end of the world lol Ryan On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 9:30 AM, Travis Johnson t...@ida.net wrote: Technically, yes, this was your fault. The customer is paying YOU for service... not qwest. If you can't provide the service (regardless of the reason), then it's your fault. In our regional area, the ABC affiliate stopped selling to DISH Network last year over the contract price. So if you had DISH (which I did), you could no longer get ABC at all. This went on for over 6 months. Do you think everyone was mad at ABC or DISH? DISH is the one that had to start giving credits and take all the phone calls. You HAVE to have at least two separate upstreams or you are just asking for these kind of problems. Travis Microserv Ryan Ghering wrote: Yesterday, we had a long term upstream outage. Someone in Qwest killed our ATM upstream and somehow we were getting crosstalk to another ATM PVC. (Don't ask nobody can tell me how this was done). In the mean time customers are calling us screaming that they need their net. Our staff politely informs them all day long that this isn't a issue with us, its upstream. Some customers accept that and move on for the day. However the kicker!! One of our customers which is a dedicated 3 meg calls up and asks, Are you down I say yes at this time the internet is down due to a problem with qwest in Denver. The customer says ok, do you have an ETA? I tell him no not at this time the problem is with qwest not with us. Customer says ok thanks and hangs up. Not 20 minutes later I get a phone call from the customer, he's mad as hell and spitting nails. I only caught about 1/2 of what he had said. But it sounded like. Your a damn lier, I call qwest, they have NO issues anywhere. I want my ** Net or you can kiss my account goodbye a**hole.. Then he hangs up. ( mind you this is a business customer ) I call him back about an hour later and he says he's canceled. And will get service from somewhere else. How can this be? How was this my fault? Customers are irrational
Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or isitgettingbetter?
we did let them know it was a qwest issue, and even went as far as giving the customer the qwest trouble ticket number if the wanted it. We also updated the customers each time if we got any ETA information You left that out the first time :-) OK. I agree, its NOT technically your faught. But we can agree, it is your faught in the customer's mind. And we can agree that it sucks to be responsible for other people's failures. But such is life. Maybe the answer is to do our best to change customer perception? Maybe it is to just accept that its not worth (or cost justified) striving to keep every customer, when you are in an environment where the challenges makes it so. But it doesn't mean the customer is clueless. It really means that the customer doesn't apreciate what they have. That is one of the things we realized recently. We now do a better job reinforcing the value of what we deliver. We don't give in to customer's inflated expectations when we pitch our service, unless appropriate to. For example, in the rural residential areas we serve, early in the sales process we might say straight up. Its not easy getting broadband to the country, its going to be more expensive, and its not going to be as fast. Or we are booked for 3-4 weeks, maybe we'll be able to work you in, but I'm not going to promise it, or No its not ideal for your NetFlix video downloads, and no its not going to be as good as your FIOS circuit that you used to have at your old house, but I will guarantee one thing, that our service is the most reliable service of all the options that are currently available to your home location. . Or... You asked, do we have outages? Of course we do, just like everyone. We are extending Cogent's network, thats what we are selling you at your location, we can only offer you uptime as good as the upstream provider, and from our experience Cogent is reliable provider. What I can tell you is that our last mile network is as good as it gets, and has 4:1 FEWER outages than our fiber carriers. If Cogent is not good enough for you, we can agreegate you to a different Upstream provider. The price will be.... What, You said you don't approve paying 3X more for that provider, and are fine with Cogent and saving tons of money, and understand our SLA. OK, good, let move forward. The expectations are set, before the circuit is ever installed. (Obviously those aren't my comments, in areas where we can deliver five 9 reliabilty, have fiber like speed, and redundnacy.) Tom DeReggi RapidDSL Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband - Original Message - From: Ryan Ghering rgher...@gmail.com To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 8:58 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Are customers increasingly clueless? Or isitgettingbetter? Actually we maintain pretty good transparency with our clients, we did let them know it was a qwest issue, and even went as far as giving the customer the qwest trouble ticket number if the wanted it. We also updated the customers each time if we got any ETA information. We NEVER leave the customer in the dark. Also how is it MY fault that I can't find affordable redundant upstream? Where is that cost gona come from? You think my customers are gona pay double so that I can get a 2nd upstream in here? Hell no.. Customers only want a few things. As much bandwidth as they can get, 100 % uptime and it all has to be for 25 bucks a month or less. Now thats keeping it real.. Nobody can tell me that they honestly will by a 10,000 to 15,000 dollar secondary pipe if their business won't support it without passing that cost to the customer. Its not only stupid but bad business. Customers today, don't care WHO's fault it is, fact is the ISP is blamed for ANY problem. Hell we have a older couple that blames us everytime that epson updates drivers for their printer and it stops working, because the update was done over my internet. Its lets get real time.. If you are a WISP or ISP in BFE. Costs are higher profit margins are way lower and redundant connections are REALLY costly and hard to come by. So who loose's here due to LEC stupidity? (which we found out is what it was btw) the ISP.. We always loose as its always our fault. No matter what the problem we are at fault. Last week we had a major hail storm, Thankfully only a few canopy units were damaged. However 2 of those customers had the same opinion.. How come you can't protect these things better. Why do I have to be without service for a day because your gear is made faulty. Is this my fault? NO its Motorola's for putting the quality hardware that never fails that we love so much, in a crappy plastic casing. Thats reality.. Ryan On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 5:33 PM, Tom DeReggi wirelessn...@rapiddsl.netwrote: Actually, I disagree with your example. You let your customer down, not Qwest. Did you
