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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA Reviews:
 ·SONIC.NET
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to iansltx
Re: It's called a "business opportunity" said by iansltx:Grab some investors and make your own private entity. Might be doing that myself in a similar situation...town of 10k and TWC is the only decent broadband here. Verizon never bothered to roll out DSL since their lines are pretty screwy; a telephone company ~40 miles over put in a DSLAM awhile back but it can't service most of the town and speeds and prices are uncompetitive (1.5/512 for $50) unless you're a business within range. What he said, except the pricing. If there truly is demand for broadband in Podunk, then someone will roll up their sleeves and provide it. But the citizens of Podunk have to be willing to pay the fare. And that ain't $25 a month. Wisp service is going to start at $60-75/month for very basic speeds of 512kb, if it is to remain in business. Its not clear that rural folk are willing to commit to such rate plans.
If the ISP is expected to deliver rural service for $20/month, just because urban ILECs do, well, no one is going to bother, except the most civic-minded volunteer groups, and those are very hard to maintain. | | |
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
| It's not broadband, but 128/64 DSL is provided by the neighboring telephone co-op for $17.95 per month plus a phone line (maybe $15 for that), and they're highly rural.
20k in a town on the other hand is NOT rural. Granted, it may not be MDU city, but there are plenty of paying customers there.
Additionally, WISP service tends to be in the $40-$50 range for a low-end plan. Probably cheaper than non-triple-play cable internet in fact, albeit for MUCH slower speeds. The local WISP here has charged $41.95 per month for their basic service for several years now, even when they had decent quality, albeit on a 384/128 connection (but hey, you got a static IP, which is freaking awesome).
Bottom line: if your area is truly underserved, there is a market for an additional internet pipe. If there's no DSL in an area, only one cable company and no fiber, you're underserved and could probably make a buck off of people wanting better service.
elray, don't know where you got the $60-$75 number from. Even satellite internet starts off cheaper than that, so no WISP in their right mind catering to residences would decide not to parovide a $50 plan...if WIldBlue is cheaper by $10/mo than decent broadband, some people won't switch, and WISPs generally need all the customers they can get to try for economies of scale. | |
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·RoadRunner Cable
| said by iansltx:It's not broadband, but 128/64 DSL is provided by the neighboring telephone co-op for $17.95 per month plus a phone line (maybe $15 for that), and they're highly rural. Additionally, WISP service tends to be in the $40-$50 range for a low-end plan. elray, don't know where you got the $60-$75 number from. Even satellite internet starts off cheaper than that, so no WISP in their right mind catering to residences would decide not to parovide a $50 plan...if WIldBlue is cheaper by $10/mo than decent broadband, some people won't switch... Well, if you can run a wisp profitably on lower rents, be my guest. I guess I'm not as cutthroat. Personally, I'd be happy with the 128K service.
My price reference was for the few Wisp hookups I did in southern california in Ventura and Riverside counties - all since replaced with cable or dsl. Our local fixed-wireless last charged $50 but went under at that rate. Its successor charges $100 and up - fixed wireless here, is now marketed as a telco-free/cableco-free bypass service, not a competitor, and not residential.
If, as you say, Wireless must be cheaper than WildBlue to succeed, then I guess that contradicts the testimony I read here every week, that satellite users "would gladly pay" for an alternative to Hughes, WildBlue, etc. | |
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
| Let me put it this way: if you sell your service for more than $50 at the entry level, you're missing out on potential WB converts because your service is more expensive than WB.
For the biz-class WISPS, charging high rates is fine. However if you want to hit the residential market you have to price yourself around $40-$50 per month, the average for cable and DSL in town. Otherwise only high-end users will use your system...the low-end users, as long as they know halfway what they're doing, are more profitable if you've got expensive backhaul, since they won't such down as many bits.
From what I've seen around here, WISPS can survive perfectly charging $40 per month for their basic tier of service. The TExas market may well be different than others, but I'm seeing $50 per month as the baseline in most places that I look. Coincidence, considering rates for WildBlue? I think not. | |
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