Roaming would be more closely compared with peering than wholesaling.
The cell companies trade minutes back and forth each month, they don't
"sell off" the customer.
Travis
Microserv
Mike Hammett wrote:
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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