Only the ones where they'd care about being informed in semi real time of what their bill will be.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com From: Travis Johnson Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 4:47 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Metered Billing And it's going to run on every computer at their house? I currently have 5 computers at my house, and they call get used all the time. ;) Travis Microserv [email protected] wrote: This is pretty easy to do. I had a small app I tried out a few years ago. It would test a connection out and do a few link diagnostics. It also checked a webserver and would display notices, etc, for reporting downtime, repair schedules and what not. Overall, it was not much of a hit with people. I have toyed with the idea of bring it back and adding twitter updates and the likes. It would be pretty easy to add a bw/$ display to it, depending on the bw manager setup. I can see about rustling it up again. Mike Hammett wrote: Daily, maybe even hourly bandwidth web based usage history and a running meter down in the system tray? Then they can yell at the kid for using 5 gigs in the afternoon, who cares if he was there to use it or not.... Just like he left the TV on and it used power for two hours. They get billed either way. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com -------------------------------------------------- From: "Eric Rogers" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 9:00 AM To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [WISPA] Metered Billing What happens when the teenager starts the streaming tv on the xbox and a friend shows up... decides to go down the street but leaves it running till mom and dad gets home at 6:00 PM? Then mom and dad decide to rent a movie. To me, I am counting on over-selling the bandwidth and that is where the profit is. My dynamic is changing and the only thing that makes sense is to pay if you use it ... more than normal. I am looking for pros and cons of metered/tiered billing. I have heard from many as to why they wouldn't and don't, so who is billing tiered and/or metered? The questions still stand. Eric Rogers Precision Data Solutions, LLC (317) 831-3000 x200 Fat-fingered from my phone! On Nov 8, 2009, at 9:46 AM, "Jayson Baker" <[email protected]> wrote: Not everyone uses 6Mbps all day long. On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 7:52 PM, RickG <[email protected]> wrote: Thats one way to utilize bandwidth shaping but how do you " guaranteed minimum of 1.5Mbps, 4Mbps and 6Mbps" at those low rates to every use and make money? Maybe I'm wrong but the problem I see is that you will end up having unhappy subscribers when their expectations are not met. Thats where the premium rates can come in. I find people all the time who would pay more for committed speeds if it can be delivered. BTW: Cricket Communications, subsidiary of Leap Wireless has lost money since its inception and continues to do so. Give me an example of an non-subsidized "all you can eat service" company in a competitive market that actually makes money (bottom line). On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 4:55 PM, Jayson Baker <[email protected]> wrote: Ya know, we've looked at this many times over the past couple years, and even tested it for a bit. Fact is, people like unlimited, and not having to guess. I, myself, being a fairly lite user of the Internet, would still always opt for an unlimited plan--even if I knew my bill may be lower on a pay-per-use plan. I have unlimited cell phone minutes, txt messages, etc. If I could pay for unlimited utilites, I'd certainly do that too! We've got the infrastructure in place for a pay-per-use, and could activate it at anytime. We tried selling it about a year ago, and people just didn't understand the concept. People aren't used to it--most people got online when Internet was $19.95/mo for dialup (or, $22.95 for AOL!), and don't remember the 10 for $10 dial-up packages. Nobody knows what ISDN with 300 hours is. We currently offer 12Mbps service for $24.95/mo. This makes us the fastest in the area, and the cheapest. We have local sales, support and installations. We decided the way to win is to shape traffic--we offer three 12Mbps packages; one with a guaranteed minimum of 1.5Mbps, 4Mbps and 6Mbps. If you do nothing than browse, share pictures, etc. (i.e. "normal use") you'll always see the 12Mbps. But once you fire up a torrent or Netflix, you only get that speed for 10 minutes--after that, you get your guaranteed minimum. Prices double from 1.5 to 4, and double again going to 6Mbps. We have never had a complaint about speed or price with this structure. I'm hoping that the "big guys" do go to pay-per-use plans. Just one more way we can advertise and win against them. "Tired of counting your bits and bytes? We're unlimited" Look at Cricket wireless--they've just exploded with customers on their unlimited-everything service. Just my 2 cents Jayson On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Travis Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: The cellular guys don't charge by the minute... I have an unlimited plan on my cell phone. I can also get unlimited text and internet access for $9.95/mo extra. People don't want to guess what their internet bills are going to be from month to month. Would you want that at your own home? Travis Microserv Gary Garrett wrote: You sound like the cell phone company. I am convinced the big failure in my business model is I charge by the month while the cellular guys charge by the minute. Travis Johnson wrote: Hi, You are talking about having to add additional resources (radius, etc.) to track it. Then you have to bill it. Then you get to deal with the phone calls from users that say "My computer wasn't even turned on during those times. Remove the charge or I will go elsewhere." So, even that one extra phone call costs you money (because you have to think about scaling). Imagine if you have 100x the number of customers you have now... does the same solution work? Probably not. The easier solution would be to call that customer and get them to upgrade to the next plan up (which would provide higher speed as well). This works very well for us... and then I have that guaranteed extra income each month, even if they don't use it. --- --- --- --- -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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! 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