Are you suggesting some sort of metric to say they are over-using service and to move to a higher usage service? We have been "All you can eat" for years but we are at a point where demand is driving upgrades. I have always called the customer that used double what the norm was and explained that we are a small company and that we are doing this because there are no other options...don't abuse it. We are currently switching out equipment on busy towers because of the traffic we are seeing. Now business wise, it was probably my mistake or underestimation that I chose it, but it served a purpose and made money.
I have been looking at the explosive growth of technology and for me to replace equipment every time something changes, or a better product comes out, that doesn't make any financial sense because we will never make money. If busy towers have overage charges, that drives "extra" revenue that can be used directly for the benefit of all customers. (that's my logic) Look at the cellular industry. They were metered...$XX dollars for YY minutes and $.ZZ for overage fees. They then created a "Unlimited" plan that is double if not triple the cost. It is still a tiered plan and that is totally an option. My thoughts are the following: $30/mo 768K ...Cap of 20 Gig $40/mo 1.5M ...Cap of 40 Gig $50/mo 3.0M ...Cap of 60 Gig $150/mo 3.0M ...Unlimited $1/Gig overage fee AND any previous plan will not exceed the $150 cap. If the plans won't touch 95% of the customers, there is no threat. It is those that are bandwidth hogs that are usually the ones that will drop you or complain. Plus, it will allow the customer to chose to move up as you suggested, to a faster/higher cap plan. Eric From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Travis Johnson Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 2:39 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Metered Billing Marlon, With thousands of wireless users, I think our "unlimited eat all you want" is working quite well. And I can say we have 5 or 6 competitors (DSL, wireless, cable, licensed Wimax, etc.) so there is no monopoly. You are brining in $1k extra per month... but it would be interesting to see how much "extra" time is being spent on that system... including the billing, phone calls, tracking, analyzing, etc. You would be better off to just "upgrade" those higher usage customers to a more expensive monthly plan, and stop worrying about billing for overage. You would make more "profit" each month by doing so. Travis Microserv Marlon K. Schafer wrote: http://www.odessaoffice.com/services.html We've done this for years. Brandon Checkalets built the software that we use. We bill on usage. Lowish base price, but relatively high overage fees. We bill out about $1k per month in overages. Our average customer does about 4 gigs per month. We have lost a few customers due to this. But they are net negative customers so I don't mind. After all, there are two main goals in business. One, turn a profit, two, make sure your competition doesn't. Loosing someone that's pulling 20+ gigs per month certainly isn't helping my competition's services at all! We just compare the billing mechanism to things people are already paying as they go. Stuff like gas, food, electricity, cell phone minutes, clothes, water, tires, um, everything else in life! If they are really sharp I'll explain how the all you can eat all of the time only works if there is a monopoly with artificially high prices for everyone else. marlon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Rogers" <ecrog...@precisionds.com> <mailto:ecrog...@precisionds.com> To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> <mailto:wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 4:56 AM Subject: [WISPA] Metered Billing We are on the verge of changing to a metered or tiered billing structure with Caps that once they exceed the cap; it doesn't shut off, but they get charged the overage. Netflix is getting out of control and I don't want to punish the customers that only use it occasionally. I think they are very innovative solutions and don't want to hinder new applications. I just want people that download 160 GB in a month, when the average is nearly 10 GB a month, to pay their share for expanding the network. Who has dabbled in the metered/tiered services and what were your customers responses? What are your tiers? Have attitudes changed toward your company as being greedy? We already have everything in place to do it, just need to send out the letter saying we are doing it and why. Eric Rogers Precision Data Solutions, LLC (317) 831-3000 x200 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org 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: wireless@wispa.org 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: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
