It's called roaming. It happens with everyone but Nextel.
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Travis Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] WISP Peering
Marlon,
Your comment that I was "short sighted" because I don't turn potential
customers over to my competition really hit a nerve. Sure we have made
some mistakes along the way, but being called short sighted because I
don't share networks and customers with competition is asinine.
You talk about the cell companies and the values they get when they sell,
etc. but I can tell you that the cell companies aren't turning customers
over to each other people they may have poor coverage in an area. :)
Travis
Microserv
Marlon K. Schafer wrote:
Travis, I think you've misunderstood me.
I'm not saying you don't have a good company. Clearly you do. I also
think you're a bright guy.
There are likely two reasons for the size difference in out companies.
The biggest would be market size. My whole COUNTY has 10,000 people in
it. Probably less than that by now. The next county over probably has
less than 50,000. I have DSL, cable, FTTH (basically GIVEN away by a
PUD), and several other wisps as competition on this very rural area.
I started my business as a copier sales and service company in '95 with
no inventory, no customers, a few tools an $3000 in the bank. It's fair
to say that I didn't exactly have an easy time of it when starting out.
I started the ISP in '97, not cause I thought it a good business, but
because no one else would do it here. In '98 I started the homebrew DSL
thing, and in '99 I started the wireless.
In 2001 when we switched from mostly office equipment work to only
internet, we had a TON of debt. An ex service manager had spent a year
setting up his own company and when he left me I lost 50%(!!!) of my
revenue in 1 month. I'd just moved into a brand new big building etc.
Had more space and a LOT more of a lease payment than I needed due to the
reduced business.
Two... We've grown much slower than some, but I'm very much a man of my
word. I've been careful NOT to put myself in a position of possible
bankruptsy etc. We've been late sometimes but other than the lease on
that building, I've never walked away from a single bill. Even when many
I know have filed bankruptsy in far easier situations. Maybe that makes
me a fool, but I'm a fool you know you can do honest business with.
3000 subs sounds great, till you think about companies with 30,000 or
300,000 subs. THAT's where *I* want to be. Actually, I want that
$10,000,000 cash payment for my company. grin. Look again, at the
original OWNERS of all of those cell phone companies that used to exist.
Or the ones that had the cable companies etc. Why were those sales so
valuable? I believe because of cooperation and standardization. Make it
as cheap and easy to take over your operations as it can be.
BTW, 1% per year in growth? Plus a 10% drop in costs? That's nice. Our
gross sales have increased by 15 to 16% per year for the last three
years. We're still not advertising either. And this year, so far, we're
running 96% ahead of last years growth. I may be in a very small market,
but I'm a damned good operator!
laters,
marlon
----- Original Message ----- From: "Travis Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] WISP Peering
Well, I seem to be holding my own ground pretty well... and I DON'T turn
customers over to my competition... over 65 towers in operation, over
3,000 wireless subs, hundreds of DSL subs, almost 50 fiber subs (banks,
hospitals, insurance, etc.)... and NO outside investors, stock holders,
or any long-term debt whatsoever. :)
(OT: Our annual gross revenue has been within 1% of the previous year
for the past 4 years. However, I have managed to decrease our expenses
by 10% every year. While this doesn't seem like a lot, realize we are a
multi-million dollar company. There is EASY money to be made by just
cutting expenses. Things like shopping around for better CC rates,
better insurance rates, cheaper bandwidth, etc.)
Also, if you leased your equipment, you could put the new tower up for
less than $200 per month for EVERYTHING. ;)
<rant>
Call it what you will Marlon, but I believe you started your wireless
operation around 1997 (going off your website). In 1997 we started our
wireless service as well. Today we have over 3,000 connected wireless
subs and are growing at over 100 per month. We have been profitable
since our first year in business. This will be _another_ record breaking
year for us. We have a backbone uptime of 99.99% over the last 2 years
(including scheduled maintenance). Our wireless subs see a 99.9% uptime
(including maintenance, interferance issues, blown AP's, etc). We
deliver over 150Mbps of internet traffic during business hours using
three diverse providers (DS3 via Qwest fiber, OC3 via seperate Qwest
fiber, Level3 via fastethernet via seperate fiber via seperate NOC). We
provide service to 8 entire school districts (out of a possible 10 in
our entire 25,000 square mile coverage area).
</rant>
So, if I'm short sighted and you are not, why is my company 10x the size
and making 10x the profit when both of us started at the same time?
Travis
Microserv
Marlon K. Schafer wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Travis Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:16 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] WISP Peering
Why wouldn't you just put up your own AP's and service the same area
rather than give that customer away to the competition?
Spectrum congestion.
Cashflow
Speed.
Expanded coverage, very quickly, for no money.
I would spend $5k and put up my own tower before I turn a "potential"
customer away to the competition. I've done it many times over the
years and it has always paid off. Once one person is connected, they
tell their neighbors about it. Pretty soon an AP that was put up for a
single customer has 10 or 20 customers on it.
Um, the competitors ALREADY have networks in place!!!!!
Doesn't seem to make business sense to me. Plus when they need tech
support, how do you troubleshoot the competitors AP's? How do you do
RF link tests and packet loss tests at 10:00PM when the customer is on
the phone?
I call the competitor on his cell phone. Just like he does with me.
Your attidude, while pretty typical, is very short sighted. The more
we work together to keep the airways clean and maximize the
investments, the better all of our networks run and the faster we can
grow.
It's that silly ol' "Together we stand" thing.
I was watching a group of kids play Red Rover the other day. I had to
wonder how that game would turn out if the kids all tried to stand
there and hold their OWN ground instead of working as a team.
Travis
Microserv
Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "George Rogato"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 6:42 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] WISP Peering
Marlon K. Schafer (509) 982-2181 wrote:
Two of my competitors just sat down for lunch and worked out a
network sharing agreement. It's a handshake deal at this point
though.
Basically we carved up a hilltop laying out coverage zones for each
of us, and we set a price for using each other's ap's.
Marlon
Hey I think thats a good thing you've done there Marlon, getting
along and even doing business with your competitors.
Yeah. It's something that the three of us have already been doing
for a couple of years. We sell on each other's ap's at the same
price. The only catch is that each of us has to live under the bw,
and bit cap rules of the other guys network vs. our own. But that
seems perfectly fair to me.
We also handle all tech support for the cusotmer. The customer
should NEVER contact the other isp. We have however, shown up
together at problematic customers and worked jointly to fix any
issues.
But where do you think the line would be drawn in respect to anti
competitive practices?
I'm not sure. We've not had that come up yet.
Did you have a specific situation in mind?
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