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I have to agree with Mark here. We are using the same model he is and
we have more work than we know what to do with.... $39.95 per month home, no contract / $59.95 per month small business, no contract / Higher rates for special services and/or special QoS, contract required Installs start at $199 and range to $899 including a 70ft bracketed tower. Special cases go higher.... One subdivision just approved $5500 for a freestanding tower to serve their 30 homes in a small valley. We own all radio equipment. We clear our equipment and supplies cost for any new install from the install fee. Sometimes, when we 'recycle' a radio, we even make money on an install, but we don't plan on it. The labor part of the install is covered by the first month or so's fees. We allow self install if the customer buys his own equipment. No setup charges for self install but unit must be approved prior to install and must meet our snr requirements. We no longer try to compete head-to-head with the cable or telephone companies. They can have the $15 per month bottom feeders. There is way too much churn in those markets for us. Another thing that helps us is that we are more than an ISP. We are a full service computer shop as well. When our customer calls in with a problem, and the radio gear checks out, we don't pass them off as a problem in your computer, we hand the call to our computer tech who can usually diagnose the problem over the phone. If we go out and the problem is in the computer, not our radio equipment, we waive the service call charge if the customer has our shop fix the computer, and we will pick it up for free since we are there. We credit a new customers first months service charge as a discount to the referring customer..... We started out getting 4-5 calls a month for new service. We now get 5-7 a WEEK. All word of mouth. Make friends with the real estate agents. Give them flyers to give to their clients. Work hard to get the local, small businesses as clients. They will give you all the free, word of mouth advertising you can use. They will also let pass out your flyers to their customers.... It works for us.... We now offer service anywhere in our county. We built our network with our own private funds. No government handouts. We are profitable, and have less than $10K in debt. We will retire that debt this year. Mark Nash wrote: Doesn't it depend on your customer base? Did we hear that this is a small town? Your way of doing things is like mine. Show value and provide a good service and you will have very little churn in your customers. There are a number of small towns (1k-4k population) that I service, but once we went into the larger town (200k), we would have to give it away, longer ROI on the CPE, lower margin, etc. And the customers are more snobby when they are used to being overserved by the larger companies (telco & cable).Being a small company, I have found that our initial focus is the best for us: small towns & rural area. We have a nice valley that (topographically-speaking) supports this well. We are members of the chambers of commerce, our kids have played sports together, see each other in the grocery store, etc. I have even gone so far as to work with the local hardware store to carry most of the general items that I use such as RJ45's, weatherproof tape, zip-ties, mounting screws & such. We charge $44.95 for a residential/mom & pop-type business with a $199 installation. We give a $25 credit to an existing customer who refers a new customer to us, and that new customer gets $25 off of their installation fee just for being referred. Works great. No contract...provide a good service and don't give people a reason to think about changing if they have a choice. This works for a small-town environment, but as I said, it all changes if you're going after a larger town/city/whatever. Then it's harder to sell your value at a higher price. You can do it, it just takes more. I believe that without a significant amount of funding available up front, a WISP would be crazy to try to come in at $25 per month. Consider that you may get 1 to 2 customers per month in the beginning until your advertising & word-of-mouth gets going (4-10 months depending on how much $$$ you sink into it). Then it will 'surge' to 4-6 customers per month. What I'm saying here is go conservative at first, make some $$$, then re-evaluate your cost/revenue model. If you overestimate, you'll be frustrated for a long, long time with the lack of funding you will have to do things. Now is a GREAT time to start a WISP. The major factor in expansion has always been CPE cost, CPE cost, CPE cost. When we started in 2001, it was like $600. Things went very, very, slowly because noone was willing to pay for the equipment. So unless we wanted to go further into debt, we had to grow at a snail's pace after we were covering our costs. I'm sure there's a spreadsheet that has been generated here for costs vs. revenue. Consider potential vs. reality & play it safe and you may not be disappointed. Mark Nash Network Engineer UnwiredOnline.Net 350 Holly Street Junction City, OR 97448 http://www.uwol.net 541-998-5555 541-998-5599 fax ----- Original Message ----- From: "JohnnyO" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'WISPA General List'" <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 5:34 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] Re: CPE Cost Ideas Needed -- Blair Davis AOL IM Screen Name -- Theory240 West Michigan Wireless ISP 269-686-8648 A division of: Camp Communication Services, INC |
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