RE: [WISPA] Refreshing Day
It's that same 'small thinking' owner that kept a national ISP group from ever being successful. The cable and TV industry love it when we are fragmented without a single focus. That is why WISPA is so special. Yeah we all do thing are own way but we can pretty much agree that turning money down over pride is a sign of a small mind. Forbes Mercy President - Washington Broadband, Inc. I wish it were that way for me. I called a competitor once, as I had a $500/month account. All I could see was the tower they're on. Called them, told em I'd pay them $250 / month for the account ( I know they charge a lot more than that... ) since I'd manage the customer, etc. They hung up on me. I called back to talk to the owner and was rudely told, even by him, that they would not support their competitors. hah. I hooked the customer up with a cable modem, and I paid for the line so I could run an AP off his roof with now 12 customers from there. One of the other customers could see my stuff, so I use the cable line as a backup now. :) Oh, the competitor left that tower, too... -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 11:36 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Yeah, a guy needs days like that once in a while eh? I went to do an install today and found that I couldn't hit the customer due to trees etc. While up on the roof I noticed that one of the dozen or so ap's I was picking up belonged to one of my competitors. A quick phone call later and I had an IP addy from him. Got the customer up and running. My competitor will make some money from me, I'll get a bit from the customer, and the customer has service. A great day all around! marlon - Original Message - From: Rick Harnish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:16 PM Subject: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Well it was 10 degrees above zero this afternoon here in northern Indiana. We have been having an issue on one particular tower and after changing the base station equipment a couple times in the last few days, I decided to get out from behind a desk and go out to some customer locations that were still having issues. Turned out to be some minor tweaking of settings but it gave me a chance to interface with some customers face to face. It was very refreshing to hear compliments about our service and many thanks for bringing broadband out into the rural areas. These were a few customers that had very little service in the last few days. I almost feel like I should make each member of my staff go do this at least once a month. It really gives a guy a renewed appreciation of why we do what we do. Eight years ago when we started this, it was very apparent. Lately it seems like most people expect service anywhere they are and at a very cheap price. Normal phone conversations seem to leave me with a bad guy impression. Too Much, not fast enough, whaddya mean, I can't get service, TWO YEAR CONTRACT, no way!. Well today, shaking people's hands and seeing the smile on their face when everything was fixed and back to normal, takes all that away. Heck, I think I was happier than they were. My last service call was to a gentleman I have known for 20 years from a distance. He called late in the afternoon and said he couldn't get logged on and that our installer had been there today to replace a radio. He was so complimentary on the phone about the quality work and attitude of the installer and the rest of my staff, so I called my wife and told her I would be home in about an hour. I drove 15 miles out of town and fixed the issue rather quickly. Same IP address, different radio MAC addresstower needed a reboot to get rid of the arp issue. I guess I could have done that from the office but this one seemed like it was better handled face to face. The customer was off to church as soon as I left his house and I'm sure that he probably told all his friends about our service and my fine staff. Some people just value the local support a WISP is willing to give to its customers. It's not all about price, service like this makes customers for life, no matter how cheap they can buy it from somewhere else. Oh yeah, I also backed into his mailbox on the way out the driveway. You know, it didn't even bother him.I'll fix that right up tomorrow, you go on home now :-) Respectfully, Rick Harnish President OnlyInternet Broadband Wireless, Inc. 260-827-2482 Founding Member of WISPA -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day
And now when they have an outage, the customer will call you and what will you tell them? u... well it's not really my network, so I'm not really sure what the problem is or when it will be fixed. :( Travis Microserv Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Yeah, a guy needs days like that once in a while eh? I went to do an install today and found that I couldn't hit the customer due to trees etc. While up on the roof I noticed that one of the dozen or so ap's I was picking up belonged to one of my competitors. A quick phone call later and I had an IP addy from him. Got the customer up and running. My competitor will make some money from me, I'll get a bit from the customer, and the customer has service. A great day all around! marlon - Original Message - From: Rick Harnish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:16 PM Subject: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Well it was 10 degrees above zero this afternoon here in northern Indiana. We have been having an issue on one particular tower and after changing the base station equipment a couple times in the last few days, I decided to get out from behind a desk and go out to some customer locations that were still having issues. Turned out to be some minor tweaking of settings but it gave me a chance to interface with some customers face to face. It was very refreshing to hear compliments about our service and many thanks for bringing broadband out into the rural areas. These were a few customers that had very little service in the last few days. I almost feel like I should make each member of my staff go do this at least once a month. It really gives a guy a renewed appreciation of why we do what we do. Eight years ago when we started this, it was very apparent. Lately it seems like most people expect service anywhere they are and at a very cheap price. Normal phone conversations seem to leave me with a bad guy impression. Too Much, not fast enough, whaddya mean, I can't get service, TWO YEAR CONTRACT, no way!. Well today, shaking people's hands and seeing the smile on their face when everything was fixed and back to normal, takes all that away. Heck, I think I was happier than they were. My last service call was to a gentleman I have known for 20 years from a distance. He called late in the afternoon and said he couldn't get logged on and that our installer had been there today to replace a radio. He was so complimentary on the phone about the quality work and attitude of the installer and the rest of my staff, so I called my wife and told her I would be home in about an hour. I drove 15 miles out of town and fixed the issue rather quickly. Same IP address, different radio MAC addresstower needed a reboot to get rid of the arp issue. I guess I could have done that from the office but this one seemed like it was better handled face to face. The customer was off to church as soon as I left his house and I'm sure that he probably told all his friends about our service and my fine staff. Some people just value the local support a WISP is willing to give to its customers. It's not all about price, service like this makes customers for life, no matter how cheap they can buy it from somewhere else. Oh yeah, I also backed into his mailbox on the way out the driveway. You know, it didn't even bother him.I'll fix that right up tomorrow, you go on home now :-) Respectfully, Rick Harnish President OnlyInternet Broadband Wireless, Inc. 260-827-2482 Founding Member of WISPA -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Refreshing Day
That's the way we felt after the last ISPCON...just wish everyone from out company could have been there. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Harnish Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 10:17 PM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Well it was 10 degrees above zero this afternoon here in northern Indiana. We have been having an issue on one particular tower and after changing the base station equipment a couple times in the last few days, I decided to get out from behind a desk and go out to some customer locations that were still having issues. Turned out to be some minor tweaking of settings but it gave me a chance to interface with some customers face to face. It was very refreshing to hear compliments about our service and many thanks for bringing broadband out into the rural areas. These were a few customers that had very little service in the last few days. I almost feel like I should make each member of my staff go do this at least once a month. It really gives a guy a renewed appreciation of why we do what we do. Eight years ago when we started this, it was very apparent. Lately it seems like most people expect service anywhere they are and at a very cheap price. Normal phone conversations seem to leave me with a bad guy impression. Too Much, not fast enough, whaddya mean, I can't get service, TWO YEAR CONTRACT, no way!. Well today, shaking people's hands and seeing the smile on their face when everything was fixed and back to normal, takes all that away. Heck, I think I was happier than they were. My last service call was to a gentleman I have known for 20 years from a distance. He called late in the afternoon and said he couldn't get logged on and that our installer had been there today to replace a radio. He was so complimentary on the phone about the quality work and attitude of the installer and the rest of my staff, so I called my wife and told her I would be home in about an hour. I drove 15 miles out of town and fixed the issue rather quickly. Same IP address, different radio MAC addresstower needed a reboot to get rid of the arp issue. I guess I could have done that from the office but this one seemed like it was better handled face to face. The customer was off to church as soon as I left his house and I'm sure that he probably told all his friends about our service and my fine staff. Some people just value the local support a WISP is willing to give to its customers. It's not all about price, service like this makes customers for life, no matter how cheap they can buy it from somewhere else. Oh yeah, I also backed into his mailbox on the way out the driveway. You know, it didn't even bother him.I'll fix that right up tomorrow, you go on home now :-) Respectfully, Rick Harnish President OnlyInternet Broadband Wireless, Inc. 260-827-2482 Founding Member of WISPA -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day
Nope. We'll tell them that we're working on it. What do you tell people when your t-1 goes down I'm getting $15 per month that I'd have had to pass up. If I work with my competitors in a friendly manner, I effectively build a MUCH larger network, for less money AND I help to keep the spectrum that much cleaner. We also sell access on our network to any of our competitors that want/need it. Well all but one of them can buy access from us. marlon - Original Message - From: Travis Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 6:17 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day And now when they have an outage, the customer will call you and what will you tell them? u... well it's not really my network, so I'm not really sure what the problem is or when it will be fixed. :( Travis Microserv Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Yeah, a guy needs days like that once in a while eh? I went to do an install today and found that I couldn't hit the customer due to trees etc. While up on the roof I noticed that one of the dozen or so ap's I was picking up belonged to one of my competitors. A quick phone call later and I had an IP addy from him. Got the customer up and running. My competitor will make some money from me, I'll get a bit from the customer, and the customer has service. A great day all around! marlon - Original Message - From: Rick Harnish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:16 PM Subject: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Well it was 10 degrees above zero this afternoon here in northern Indiana. We have been having an issue on one particular tower and after changing the base station equipment a couple times in the last few days, I decided to get out from behind a desk and go out to some customer locations that were still having issues. Turned out to be some minor tweaking of settings but it gave me a chance to interface with some customers face to face. It was very refreshing to hear compliments about our service and many thanks for bringing broadband out into the rural areas. These were a few customers that had very little service in the last few days. I almost feel like I should make each member of my staff go do this at least once a month. It really gives a guy a renewed appreciation of why we do what we do. Eight years ago when we started this, it was very apparent. Lately it seems like most people expect service anywhere they are and at a very cheap price. Normal phone conversations seem to leave me with a bad guy impression. Too Much, not fast enough, whaddya mean, I can't get service, TWO YEAR CONTRACT, no way!. Well today, shaking people's hands and seeing the smile on their face when everything was fixed and back to normal, takes all that away. Heck, I think I was happier than they were. My last service call was to a gentleman I have known for 20 years from a distance. He called late in the afternoon and said he couldn't get logged on and that our installer had been there today to replace a radio. He was so complimentary on the phone about the quality work and attitude of the installer and the rest of my staff, so I called my wife and told her I would be home in about an hour. I drove 15 miles out of town and fixed the issue rather quickly. Same IP address, different radio MAC addresstower needed a reboot to get rid of the arp issue. I guess I could have done that from the office but this one seemed like it was better handled face to face. The customer was off to church as soon as I left his house and I'm sure that he probably told all his friends about our service and my fine staff. Some people just value the local support a WISP is willing to give to its customers. It's not all about price, service like this makes customers for life, no matter how cheap they can buy it from somewhere else. Oh yeah, I also backed into his mailbox on the way out the driveway. You know, it didn't even bother him.I'll fix that right up tomorrow, you go on home now :-) Respectfully, Rick Harnish President OnlyInternet Broadband Wireless, Inc. 260-827-2482 Founding Member of WISPA -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day
Marlon, We don't sell T1's any longer. We install our own wireless thus keeping control of the entire connection. Travis Microserv Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Nope. We'll tell them that we're working on it. What do you tell people when your t-1 goes down I'm getting $15 per month that I'd have had to pass up. If I work with my competitors in a friendly manner, I effectively build a MUCH larger network, for less money AND I help to keep the spectrum that much cleaner. We also sell access on our network to any of our competitors that want/need it. Well all but one of them can buy access from us. marlon - Original Message - From: Travis Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 6:17 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day And now when they have an outage, the customer will call you and what will you tell them? u... well it's not really my network, so I'm not really sure what the problem is or when it will be fixed. :( Travis Microserv Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Yeah, a guy needs days like that once in a while eh? I went to do an install today and found that I couldn't hit the customer due to trees etc. While up on the roof I noticed that one of the dozen or so ap's I was picking up belonged to one of my competitors. A quick phone call later and I had an IP addy from him. Got the customer up and running. My competitor will make some money from me, I'll get a bit from the customer, and the customer has service. A great day all around! marlon - Original Message - From: Rick Harnish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:16 PM Subject: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Well it was 10 degrees above zero this afternoon here in northern Indiana. We have been having an issue on one particular tower and after changing the base station equipment a couple times in the last few days, I decided to get out from behind a desk and go out to some customer locations that were still having issues. Turned out to be some minor tweaking of settings but it gave me a chance to interface with some customers face to face. It was very refreshing to hear compliments about our service and many thanks for bringing broadband out into the rural areas. These were a few customers that had very little service in the last few days. I almost feel like I should make each member of my staff go do this at least once a month. It really gives a guy a renewed appreciation of why we do what we do. Eight years ago when we started this, it was very apparent. Lately it seems like most people expect service anywhere they are and at a very cheap price. Normal phone conversations seem to leave me with a bad guy impression. Too Much, not fast enough, whaddya mean, I can't get service, TWO YEAR CONTRACT, no way!. Well today, shaking people's hands and seeing the smile on their face when everything was fixed and back to normal, takes all that away. Heck, I think I was happier than they were. My last service call was to a gentleman I have known for 20 years from a distance. He called late in the afternoon and said he couldn't get logged on and that our installer had been there today to replace a radio. He was so complimentary on the phone about the quality work and attitude of the installer and the rest of my staff, so I called my wife and told her I would be home in about an hour. I drove 15 miles out of town and fixed the issue rather quickly. Same IP address, different radio MAC addresstower needed a reboot to get rid of the arp issue. I guess I could have done that from the office but this one seemed like it was better handled face to face. The customer was off to church as soon as I left his house and I'm sure that he probably told all his friends about our service and my fine staff. Some people just value the local support a WISP is willing to give to its customers. It's not all about price, service like this makes customers for life, no matter how cheap they can buy it from somewhere else. Oh yeah, I also backed into his mailbox on the way out the driveway. You know, it didn't even bother him.I'll fix that right up tomorrow, you go on home now :-) Respectfully, Rick Harnish President OnlyInternet Broadband Wireless, Inc. 260-827-2482 Founding Member of WISPA -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day
You know that's not what I meant Travis! grin Back when you bought a t-1 for your service, way back when. Sometimes it went down. What did you tell your customers? This is really no different. And the benefits from a cost, spectrum, speed of deployment far outweigh any problems that we have. I already work with this guy on other projects and things have gone well. marlon - Original Message - From: Travis Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 7:52 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Marlon, We don't sell T1's any longer. We install our own wireless thus keeping control of the entire connection. Travis Microserv Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Nope. We'll tell them that we're working on it. What do you tell people when your t-1 goes down I'm getting $15 per month that I'd have had to pass up. If I work with my competitors in a friendly manner, I effectively build a MUCH larger network, for less money AND I help to keep the spectrum that much cleaner. We also sell access on our network to any of our competitors that want/need it. Well all but one of them can buy access from us. marlon - Original Message - From: Travis Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 6:17 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day And now when they have an outage, the customer will call you and what will you tell them? u... well it's not really my network, so I'm not really sure what the problem is or when it will be fixed. :( Travis Microserv Marlon K. Schafer wrote: Yeah, a guy needs days like that once in a while eh? I went to do an install today and found that I couldn't hit the customer due to trees etc. While up on the roof I noticed that one of the dozen or so ap's I was picking up belonged to one of my competitors. A quick phone call later and I had an IP addy from him. Got the customer up and running. My competitor will make some money from me, I'll get a bit from the customer, and the customer has service. A great day all around! marlon - Original Message - From: Rick Harnish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:16 PM Subject: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Well it was 10 degrees above zero this afternoon here in northern Indiana. We have been having an issue on one particular tower and after changing the base station equipment a couple times in the last few days, I decided to get out from behind a desk and go out to some customer locations that were still having issues. Turned out to be some minor tweaking of settings but it gave me a chance to interface with some customers face to face. It was very refreshing to hear compliments about our service and many thanks for bringing broadband out into the rural areas. These were a few customers that had very little service in the last few days. I almost feel like I should make each member of my staff go do this at least once a month. It really gives a guy a renewed appreciation of why we do what we do. Eight years ago when we started this, it was very apparent. Lately it seems like most people expect service anywhere they are and at a very cheap price. Normal phone conversations seem to leave me with a bad guy impression. Too Much, not fast enough, whaddya mean, I can't get service, TWO YEAR CONTRACT, no way!. Well today, shaking people's hands and seeing the smile on their face when everything was fixed and back to normal, takes all that away. Heck, I think I was happier than they were. My last service call was to a gentleman I have known for 20 years from a distance. He called late in the afternoon and said he couldn't get logged on and that our installer had been there today to replace a radio. He was so complimentary on the phone about the quality work and attitude of the installer and the rest of my staff, so I called my wife and told her I would be home in about an hour. I drove 15 miles out of town and fixed the issue rather quickly. Same IP address, different radio MAC addresstower needed a reboot to get rid of the arp issue. I guess I could have done that from the office but this one seemed like it was better handled face to face. The customer was off to church as soon as I left his house and I'm sure that he probably told all his friends about our service and my fine staff. Some people just value the local support a WISP is willing to give to its customers. It's not all about price, service like this makes customers for life, no matter how cheap they can buy it from somewhere else. Oh yeah, I also backed into his mailbox on the way out the driveway. You know, it didn't even bother him.I'll fix that right up tomorrow, you go on home now :-) Respectfully, Rick Harnish President OnlyInternet Broadband Wireless, Inc. 260-827
Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day
Yeah, a guy needs days like that once in a while eh? I went to do an install today and found that I couldn't hit the customer due to trees etc. While up on the roof I noticed that one of the dozen or so ap's I was picking up belonged to one of my competitors. A quick phone call later and I had an IP addy from him. Got the customer up and running. My competitor will make some money from me, I'll get a bit from the customer, and the customer has service. A great day all around! marlon - Original Message - From: Rick Harnish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:16 PM Subject: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Well it was 10 degrees above zero this afternoon here in northern Indiana. We have been having an issue on one particular tower and after changing the base station equipment a couple times in the last few days, I decided to get out from behind a desk and go out to some customer locations that were still having issues. Turned out to be some minor tweaking of settings but it gave me a chance to interface with some customers face to face. It was very refreshing to hear compliments about our service and many thanks for bringing broadband out into the rural areas. These were a few customers that had very little service in the last few days. I almost feel like I should make each member of my staff go do this at least once a month. It really gives a guy a renewed appreciation of why we do what we do. Eight years ago when we started this, it was very apparent. Lately it seems like most people expect service anywhere they are and at a very cheap price. Normal phone conversations seem to leave me with a bad guy impression. Too Much, not fast enough, whaddya mean, I can't get service, TWO YEAR CONTRACT, no way!. Well today, shaking people's hands and seeing the smile on their face when everything was fixed and back to normal, takes all that away. Heck, I think I was happier than they were. My last service call was to a gentleman I have known for 20 years from a distance. He called late in the afternoon and said he couldn't get logged on and that our installer had been there today to replace a radio. He was so complimentary on the phone about the quality work and attitude of the installer and the rest of my staff, so I called my wife and told her I would be home in about an hour. I drove 15 miles out of town and fixed the issue rather quickly. Same IP address, different radio MAC addresstower needed a reboot to get rid of the arp issue. I guess I could have done that from the office but this one seemed like it was better handled face to face. The customer was off to church as soon as I left his house and I'm sure that he probably told all his friends about our service and my fine staff. Some people just value the local support a WISP is willing to give to its customers. It's not all about price, service like this makes customers for life, no matter how cheap they can buy it from somewhere else. Oh yeah, I also backed into his mailbox on the way out the driveway. You know, it didn't even bother him.I'll fix that right up tomorrow, you go on home now :-) Respectfully, Rick Harnish President OnlyInternet Broadband Wireless, Inc. 260-827-2482 Founding Member of WISPA -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
RE: [WISPA] Refreshing Day
I wish it were that way for me. I called a competitor once, as I had a $500/month account. All I could see was the tower they're on. Called them, told em I'd pay them $250 / month for the account ( I know they charge a lot more than that... ) since I'd manage the customer, etc. They hung up on me. I called back to talk to the owner and was rudely told, even by him, that they would not support their competitors. hah. I hooked the customer up with a cable modem, and I paid for the line so I could run an AP off his roof with now 12 customers from there. One of the other customers could see my stuff, so I use the cable line as a backup now. :) Oh, the competitor left that tower, too... -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marlon K. Schafer Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 11:36 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Yeah, a guy needs days like that once in a while eh? I went to do an install today and found that I couldn't hit the customer due to trees etc. While up on the roof I noticed that one of the dozen or so ap's I was picking up belonged to one of my competitors. A quick phone call later and I had an IP addy from him. Got the customer up and running. My competitor will make some money from me, I'll get a bit from the customer, and the customer has service. A great day all around! marlon - Original Message - From: Rick Harnish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'WISPA General List' wireless@wispa.org Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:16 PM Subject: [WISPA] Refreshing Day Well it was 10 degrees above zero this afternoon here in northern Indiana. We have been having an issue on one particular tower and after changing the base station equipment a couple times in the last few days, I decided to get out from behind a desk and go out to some customer locations that were still having issues. Turned out to be some minor tweaking of settings but it gave me a chance to interface with some customers face to face. It was very refreshing to hear compliments about our service and many thanks for bringing broadband out into the rural areas. These were a few customers that had very little service in the last few days. I almost feel like I should make each member of my staff go do this at least once a month. It really gives a guy a renewed appreciation of why we do what we do. Eight years ago when we started this, it was very apparent. Lately it seems like most people expect service anywhere they are and at a very cheap price. Normal phone conversations seem to leave me with a bad guy impression. Too Much, not fast enough, whaddya mean, I can't get service, TWO YEAR CONTRACT, no way!. Well today, shaking people's hands and seeing the smile on their face when everything was fixed and back to normal, takes all that away. Heck, I think I was happier than they were. My last service call was to a gentleman I have known for 20 years from a distance. He called late in the afternoon and said he couldn't get logged on and that our installer had been there today to replace a radio. He was so complimentary on the phone about the quality work and attitude of the installer and the rest of my staff, so I called my wife and told her I would be home in about an hour. I drove 15 miles out of town and fixed the issue rather quickly. Same IP address, different radio MAC addresstower needed a reboot to get rid of the arp issue. I guess I could have done that from the office but this one seemed like it was better handled face to face. The customer was off to church as soon as I left his house and I'm sure that he probably told all his friends about our service and my fine staff. Some people just value the local support a WISP is willing to give to its customers. It's not all about price, service like this makes customers for life, no matter how cheap they can buy it from somewhere else. Oh yeah, I also backed into his mailbox on the way out the driveway. You know, it didn't even bother him.I'll fix that right up tomorrow, you go on home now :-) Respectfully, Rick Harnish President OnlyInternet Broadband Wireless, Inc. 260-827-2482 Founding Member of WISPA -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
