Just think about it. What will people do that can not afford the movies, cool electronics and gadgets or go out eat nice dinners etc do at night or during the day (assuming unemployed). Sit home watch TV and surf internet. They COULD cancel their cabel/sat connection if they have a good high speed connection. So in most if not all household internet will probably be the last "luxury" to go. Most will probably cancel their home phone line before they cancel their internet connection.
Remember the article I posted the link to a couple week ago? 46% of the surveyed women would rather go without sex for 2 weeks then be without internet (only 30% of the men would do the same. Damn perverts anyway don't they know they can get that online ;) ) So as a equipment provider of WISP equipment we feel fairly comfortable. As a small town ISP feel very comfortable. We had 0 customer loss in the last 4 months yet unemployment jumped almost 4 points during the same town (one larger construction company closed their doors that provided auto parts to Detroit which was one of the biggest single employers in the area). Actually gain a few that I know for sure become unemployed some which started through layoff compensation money some online education so they had to get high speed where they before still only had dial up. Just be careful not to let people slide on their payments. Internet service is nothing you can take back so they should pay up front that way when they don't pay you can shut off service and not loose any service fees. Now if they supposed to do a contract over a period of time you might had to take them to court to get the remaining what they would owe you under their contract with you. /Eje Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile -----Original Message----- From: George Rogato <[email protected]> Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:05:41 To: WISPA General List<[email protected]> Subject: Re: [WISPA] Business strategy for an uncertain future... If I was in the business of selling something frivilous, I would be worried. This is internet access. People need Internet Access just like they need electricity. You could live with out it but who would want to. Unless you have hit the top of your saturation, then it's doubtful you'll be losing subscribers. And if you offer a competitively priced product, you should, because of the recession, find a lot of new customers looking to change to a lower priced service when their low priced introductory deals run out. Especially if you have a Voip / Intenet Access bundle to offer. So borrow away, it's not going to hurt you. As for us, we don't really borrow, or want to carry much debt. We buy our equipment out of cash flow and are happy to be clear by the third month. Only downside is I don't get the qty discount that Travis pointed out with his large purchases. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
