I did a quick analysis and I have returned 45 bad radios to Tranzeo.
However, I have received 40 working radios back from them, so I'm only
really out about 5. Out of 1000 or so customers, I think that is an
acceptable balance between inexpensive CPE and quality of construction.
Heck, I've got at least five dead Atmel boards in my shop out of 10 that
were originally deployed.
My impression is that the part of the unit that fails is generally the
radio board. It would be nice to be able to have a CPE that we could
open up and just replace the guts that have gone bad, but other than
that I can't really think of a better way to handle it.
We maintain ownership of our CPE units, so we don't charge the customer
if their radio goes bad unless it is obvious that they did something to
it. I do know of a few out there who are charging a maintenance or
customer service fee extra and it is working for them. I for one have
strongly preferred to use a "no hidden charges" pricing plan that is
inclusive of everything rather than tacking on a bunch of extra items.
In the long run, the value of the customer and the cash flow from the
customer far outweighs the cost of the radio.
Some out there prefer to build their own CPE with cb3 or wrap boards
inside, but for volume deployment and price it is pretty hard to beat
the Tranzeo package. I'm doing a few WRAPs with 5Ghz Rootennas for
business customers, but it is kind of a pain compared to the Tranzeos
because of all the extra work involved to collect the
equipment/assemble/test/configure.
Matt Larsen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
George wrote:
I feel for ya JohhnyO, seriously.
I've changed out every Smart bridge I ever installed except two and
dittto for tranzeos.
The EZ Bridges were great for a while, but going past 2 years now with
them and we're starting to replace them as well.
I'm not sure how many rados I've replaced this year, but it seems
lately it's more and more.
At almost 700 subs, the replacement rate grows, but then again the
revenue does as well.
I bet I have a couple hundred dead or upgraded cpes in my collection.
George
JohnnyO wrote:
George - that may work in your neck of the woods and I have been doing
the same since day 1. This past year - we replaced over $8,000 worth of
CPEs - that is almost a full months revenue for us.... Mind you - we
dealt with hurricanes and severe lightning - but - - - we can no longer
as a company sustain those types of hits.... That is 8k in equipment
costs - not the additional 5k worth of labor for the trips to the CPE.
I am In an area that will constantly have severe lightning issues,
hurricanes, wicked thunderstorms and high winds.
How many CPEs did you replace in the last 12 months ? I have tracked and
count 43 here.
JohnnyO
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of George
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 11:03 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Insurance / Service Plan Offerings
JohnnyO wrote:
We're coming into our 3rd year of operation soon. I am curious how
others are doing combat against the replacement / repair / service
call
costs associated with having to replace CPE end equipment.
I was thinking about offering a service plan like DirecTV / Cellular
Companies etc, but not sure how to introduce or impiliment this.
Help and suggestions would be appreciated.
Regards,
JohnnyO
I am eating it.
I bet if I told every customer who's radio died that they had to pay for
a new one, we'd have less subs.
I own all the radios and accept the responsibility.
another way I look at it, it's cheaper to give an existing sub a
100.00 radio and get 500 for the next 12 months than it is to go
without revenue and have to pay for advertising to get new subs to
replace the one that I just lost.
But, it's the way I do this in this market.
George
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