GNca George
GorillaNET
Premium
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON
| Ideas for a new competitor for Cable/DSL
Please bear in mind this is a Canadian project, and its directly aimed at an urban environment with Cable and DSL from Bell/Rogers/Cogeco as the competition. They seem pretty focused on shooting themselves in the foot, maybe its time to help out a bit...
We can get fibre to either the AP site or one hop removed at a very good price, so with the launch of very fast APs using N, or even Alvarion WiMAX in 3.65 or 5.x this seems the time to do something.
As an urban play, we are considering towns from 5K to 80K in size, with a firm expected client uptake of over 200 subscribers to qualify, slanted to favour businesses first.
I expect to partner with local ISPs and/or other businesses such as computer shops to create a win/win for everyone with a revenue split as the preferred compensation model.
The "free midnight to 6am" means that any customer traffic during this period each day will not count towards the monthly allowable total.
Comments?
George
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Tough Broadband for a Tough Crowd!
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kewlkeed
Grouch
Premium
join:2005-02-05
Knowlton, QC | I'm more curious how you'd set up the billing for that. |
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GNca George
GorillaNET
Premium
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON
1 edit | Use IPtrack at the edge with exemptions for the night time period. Bill on an exception basis at first until we see how it goes. I'm not expecting much for overage charges at first.
Probably Freeside with some custom code moving forward, using the agent functionality to let resellers see their accounts.
Should have the beta running in a couple of weeks, website up in a week or so.
What about the idea and the pricing?
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Tough Broadband for a Tough Crowd!
GorillaNET.ca - 10Mbits to your desk, coming soon. |
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JEhmanCTI
join:2008-02-06
| reply to GNca George
***DISCLAIMER: CTI IS A DISTRIBUTOR***
Pricing looks good but a lot varies depending on competition for your area. This is very interesting but have you run through the business model and ROI (I know everyone hates that term but I just had too  ). Just make sure it makes sense because Alvarion CPE can get very pricey. There are a lot of good options out there for high class services.
How much are you paying per month for that fiber connection and how much bandwidth is it getting you? Also, what is tower rent and how many customers do you plan on packing on each AP?
Those are questions you should be figuring out. The pricing model should come after you gather those facts. Then finally, you look at competition and see what your breakeven may be after factoring in all costs at pricing in the manner above. Will it compete?
-Jeff |
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GNca George
GorillaNET
Premium
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON
| The spreadsheet is 9MB in size, runs out to seven years. HeHe. We've been down that path before and our CFO is a CA and very picky.
We are down to about $9000CDN per Gb of backhaul capacity delivered on site to the aggregation point, with much less than that to the town level of course as that will be a private network. The numbers are finally quite attractive and its taken years to get there considering how far we are going to be from major carrier hotels. Like most things, there is huge synergy in doing lots of small-medium towns.
We are going to keep cell size down to about a 3.75km radius.
This gets very attractive for our local partners well before it levels out for us, but we are finally thinking long term, not just a couple of quarters into the process. In the long term this becomes a very attractive deal.
The Alvarion stuff would be reserved for the highest ARPU clients as they are the most likely to need really good QoS.
BTW, this is a zero-install-cost project to the customer. We want takeup. Lots and lots of takeup. Removing barriers to customer acceptance is the key.
George
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Tough Broadband for a Tough Crowd!
GorillaNET.ca - 10Mbits to your desk, coming soon. |
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jason13086
join:2006-07-19
Edmonds, WA
| reply to GNca George
Do the other providers have bandwidth caps? I'm not sure if its part of your business plan or not, but instead of having an overage fee per GB, why not have a soft limit? Meaning just reduce the max download speed. Reduced download speed after x GB sounds much better.
Those limits seem pretty high so its probably not a big deal, but thats what jumped out at me, as a customer, from the table you provided. Though I'm not sure if its standard practice in Canada. |
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GNca George
GorillaNET
Premium
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON
| Standard here is rapidly becoming 60GB/mo or less.
Hence my point about Rogers/Bell etc shooting themselves in the foot.
We want to provide better limits while recognizing that nothing is really 'unlimited', and we particularly want to move subscribers onto the 'dead' period between midnight and 6am where they can go completely nuts without hurting anyone else.
George
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Tough Broadband for a Tough Crowd!
GorillaNET.ca - 10Mbits to your desk, coming soon. |
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jason13086
join:2006-07-19
Edmonds, WA
1 edit | Ok that sounds quite attractive then.
Here is a good marketing strategy: increase people's bandwidth during those hours to the next tier. |
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GNca George
GorillaNET
Premium
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON
| What we really mean is that anything our customers do during those hours is not counted at all. They can run their connections completely wide open and we won't care at all, or count anything they do towards their monthly allowance.
We are hitting a problem on what to call that period though to get the message across...
George
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Tough Broadband for a Tough Crowd!
GorillaNET.ca - 10Mbits to your desk, coming soon. |
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slipstream1
Premium
join:2005-11-15
Jacksonville, TX | reply to GNca George
Try "Free For All" Midnight to 6:00 AM. |
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GNca George
GorillaNET
Premium
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON | Bingo!! That's got it.
George |
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slipstream1
Premium
join:2005-11-15
Jacksonville, TX | reply to GNca George
No charge. Glad to help a WISP from across the border. |
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jason13086
join:2006-07-19
Edmonds, WA
4 edits | reply to GNca George
So I've been thinking about my proposition of increasing people's bandwidths during the moonlight period, and I'm starting to think its actually a really good idea. It not provides more value to the customer, but it could actually decrease the load on your network.
This theory is based of two assumptions:
1) After someone's network connection is capable of streaming video, they will pretty much download the same amount of content regardless of the connection speed.
2) People want instant satisfaction.
What I'm saying is that by increasing people's speeds during moonlight hours, you increase the instant satisfaction of downloading large files more quickly. It may seem counter-intuitive, but once people start thinking "my internet speed will be superfast in 3 hours, I'll just download then", that is a real encouragement to wait. However, if they have a huge cap which they won't exceed anyways, there is no incentive (or if Johnny's parents are paying the bill).
Also, if people want to stream hd video and they can only watch it continuously with the faster speed, that is a pretty big incentive to wait till after midnight.
The other part of the theory is that it doesn't matter if they have faster speeds, they won't download much more than they would otherwise. After they download their movies or tv shows they want to watch, they aren't going to keep downloading just because they have a faster connection. So it is essentially no extra burden on your network.
Another part of the equation is purely psychological. I think Canadians desperately crave high speed unlimited internet, and if someone can experience a 20 Mbps connection, even if they rarely use it, thats a big plus.
Third, there are the hard-core downloaders that most wisps hate. I think this would not only add a lot of value for them, but give them real incentive to download at night. The two rules in the above theory still apply to them somewhat. They may torrent a lot of material, but even most of them don't do it at 100% all the time, and increasing their speed at night would change their duty cycle on the network. If, for example, Johnny starts 10 GB of downloads at 10 pm at night (typical), and at 12 am his upload ratio doubles, then by the morning it will be done. If he didn't have faster speeds, it might take until noon the next day to finish, interfering with others.
So by increasing people's speeds during moonlight hours, your are enabling your heavy downloaders (moonlighters) to get their fix completely downloaded in a limited window rather than having it drag out across the day.
Also, your higher speed plans would be self advertising. People would get a taste of the higher speeds and it would be easier to say something like this to themselves: "for just $20 more a month, I can have speeds like this all the time! no more staying up till midnight for me. And if I do stay up, the connection will be super fast!".
And finally, I think it would encourage people (especially heavy downloaders) to actually pay for a more expensive data plan simply to get higher speeds during those hours. Let me explain.
Lets say that each tier, during moonlight hours, bumps up to the next tier. The top tier would not get an increased download speed, but upload speed would be increased to 15 Mbps.
Now certain people, probably especially among Canadians, would go to great lengths to get a 20/15 connection, partially for psychological reasons as already discussed. A good portion probably wouldn't even fully utilize it, but, psychologically, they can justify shelling out $80/month instead of $50.
I'm telling you, I (as a customer) would even think about giving up an uncapped connection for increased speeds during moonlight hours. You are giving them a service that money can't buy. This is what apple does. They come out with products that compel consumers to buy something they didn't know they needed and in the process cause people to part with their money. |
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jason13086
join:2006-07-19
Edmonds, WA | By the way. "Moonlighting" - you heard it here first. |
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GNca George
GorillaNET
Premium
join:2008-07-12
Minden, ON
1 edit | reply to jason13086
Now I get it.
I was thinking raising caps, not raising speeds. This is a very good idea, just need to figure out how to actually make it work in a PPPoE world...
Along with your idea, its true to say that given adequate QoS, the backhaul to the Internet should never be less than 85% full.
If its running at less than that we aren't delivering the max value to our customers, so we're wasting money on unused capacity without leveraging that capacity to maximize our competitive advantage. Makes perfect sense to me.
Adding capacity is relatively straightforward with this model...
George
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Tough Broadband for a Tough Crowd!
GorillaNET.ca - 10Mbits to your desk, coming soon. |
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viperm
Carpe Diem
Premium
join:2002-07-09
Winchester, CA
1 edit | reply to GNca George
If using mikrotik I think in bandwidth queues there are areas for specific times to allow x amount of bandwidth or caps? I could be wrong but I thought I saw something in there under General and down below it has "time"
It may be just how long of "time" to let the customer burst etc.
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ComTrain Certified Tower Climber. American Tower Certified approved contractor. Wireless consultants. |
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Jaser
@teksavvy.com
| reply to GNca George
There are plenty areas in the Niagara escarpment area that you may want to look into.
I'm thinking Grimsby, Beamsville, (Hamilton?) etc. I believe there is already a wireless provider, but they only do business.
You'd be able to get by with a very short tower (read: 50', therefore no licensing required) and still be able to cover a large area if you service the (denser) lower side. This would also make pointing very easy for customers.
It helps that most of these areas are covered by Cageco
I like the pricing too! |
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tx_tower
join:2007-11-13
Blanco, TX
| reply to viperm
said by viperm  :If using mikrotik I think in bandiwdth queus there is areas for specific ties to allow x amount of bandwidth or caps? I could be wrong but I thought I saw something in there under General and down below it has "time" It may be just how long of "time" to let the customer burst etc. Yes, you can set the queues to be active during a certain time on mirotiks. so from 6am to 12am mon-sun, or maybe look at your lowest usage day(s), sunday? and set the queue to be "wide-open" or bump up to the next tier from 6pm to 6am? |
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thewisperer
Premium
join:2008-01-16 | that's not in the "simple queues is it?
l |
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kewlkeed
Grouch
Premium
join:2005-02-05
Knowlton, QC | reply to GNca George
Yes. But again if you do it in simple queues, it only applies to simple queues, which in themselves are not very useful for decent traffic shaping. For that you need to do queue trees and such. Which time conditions can also apply to them. |
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