Clint Ricker wrote:
People pay 6Mb/s connections for the same reasons they pay for faster cars, even though the speed limit is the same for a Ford Pinto as a Ferrari. Not an entirely apt analogy, but pretty much sums it up.
As long as we're going with car analogies, I think a big truck or SUV comparison would be more appropriate. A lot of folks buy Jeep even though they never leave the city, but a few folks buy it because they NEED the off-road stability and the cargo capacity.
To stretch the Jeep thing a bit further, many of those Jeeps now are mediocre off-road cars, or even outright BAD at that. People have been buying them for image ("look I own a big jeep"), not because they actually need that vehicle's unique capabilities. A lot of the Jeep product line has been re-tooled and re-marketed so that they look like awesome Jeeps but can't do what made them famous.
The Internet version of that would be a PtMP tower that's a bit overloaded, and has a couple folks that use their connection for some bandwidth-intensive or packet-intensive purpose. (VOIP, peer-to-peer software, application or site hosting, doesn't matter.) Everyone else bought the image, they bought the substance, and you'd better be able to deliver. Like the folks that complain about throwing an axle in their shiny new Jeep because it can't cope with being off-road, these folks will (rightly) complain that they're not getting the Internet service they thought they would.
If you say you're gonna give someone X megs of Internet, be sure you can give them that pretty consistently, all the time, or that they understand exactly what they are (and aren't) getting. Whether it's the Internet or a Jeep, the folks that need something specific really NEED it, probably know other people with similar needs, and tend to be very loud.
David Smith MVN.net -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Would you like to see your advertisement here? Let the WISPA Board know your feelings about allowing advertisements on the free WISPA lists. The current Board is taking this under consideration at this time. We want to know your thoughts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
