| [Bus. Ops] Anyone Else Using visp.net? Anyone else using or in the past used VISP.net? We are currently using them and they seem to work pretty well. We have an all UBNT network and running Monowall for traffic shaping. We have the option of using their wholesale DSL but we were also wondering if anyone has had any experience with all of it.
We have been using them for about 4 months but still have yet to use the Radius feature the offer.
One feature I really like is their mapping and pre-qualification tools.
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www.windriverwireless.com |
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| What do you think of VISP? Interested in trying it myself |
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| I really like the simplicity of it. Also there are only 2 of us that run our WISP so not having to worry about a couple extra servers to manage is nice. I still use quickbooks for the backend of things. They were really helpful in the migration process. A couple of downsides I see is the ability to export everything that goes on into quickbooks, and I am not a big fan of the layouts of the reports. However I will give them credit because I think some things will be fixed in the new version that is coming out.
Customers can also login to our portal and pay online via CC and soon Online Checks. It will also automatically suspend and unsuspend a customer for non payment. If a customer has been suspended it will redirect them to a page so they can pay via CC. Like I said I haven't implemented that feature yet so I cant really give you a good or bad on it
The geo map qualification tool is my fav!
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www.windriverwireless.com |
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| reply to wrwireless
what's pricing like? |
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| We Pay $200 a month, and that is geared toward WISPS
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www.windriverwireless.com |
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| is it on a per customer basis? How many customers do you have on it? |
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| said by prairiesky:is it on a per customer basis? How many customers do you have on it?
I believe it is $1.15 per user and then for email it is extra and so on. But for the radius and the account management thats the price. We have 46 users on our network. So they said the license fee is like $100 a month then you pay a minimum of $100 for the users and the extra features then anything over that is extra. so you can get about 86 users on the billing system before you have to start paying an additional 1.15.
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www.windriverwireless.com |
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| reply to wrwireless
that seems reasonable. thanks! what are you using as an authenticator? |
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| said by prairiesky:that seems reasonable. thanks! what are you using as an authenticator?
We are trying to get the monowall to work with their Radius but its not working so we are going to have to use a tik router I think
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www.windriverwireless.com |
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| reply to wrwireless
Its probably better going with going with powercode only paying 140 dollars a month. |
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jcremin
join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI
kudos:2 | I went through the demo with VISP and there was no mention of any "licensing" fees or anything. Just the per-subscriber cost, which looks fairly similar to the powercode pricing. I've never really used either system, but I have heard complaints about powercode.
One advantage of VISP.net is that it is a hosted system, so you don't have to manage your own server. That means when they release an update, you automatically get it.
Either way, I ultimately decided to start building my own CRM. Will it be as pretty? No, but I also don't need or want to use it as a billing system. I am a firm believer that your billing system should be a billing system.
At 250 customers, I'd be paying around $3500 a year. I can get quite a bit of development done for $3500, and then if I invest even just $1000 a year after that, I can continue to update it. And if in a couple years I am at 500 customers, I won't be paying $7,000 every year. Once I have all the functionality built, there is virtually zero ongoing expense other than any extra functionality I decided to add in the future, and my costs don't increase as I add customers.
My thoughts are that anything that will pay for itself in 3 to 5 years is a good long-term investment. If I can build a tower for significantly less than I will pay in rent in the first 3 to 5 years, I will take out the loan to build it, because after it has "paid for itself" I own it and my ongoing expense is very low. I'm taking the same approach with my CRM. Over the course of 3 to 5 years, I would have spent between 10 and 17 grand to VISP.net or powercode, and that isn't including the costs for additional customers that I fully expect to have added, which could put the total well over 20 grand.
Now, I've only just begun development, so maybe in a few months I'll be regretting my decision, but if this system turns out really well, I might be interested in licensing it out for a reasonable fee. I am building it from the ground up as a WISP CRM, but I'm also building it for the specifics of how I run my network, which may or may not work for other people. All I know is that as a WISP, anything we can do to keep our costs down is good for us. If I can recoup some expenses and help other WISP's save money and compete better with the big ISP's, I'm all for it.
I'll let everyone know how it turns out. |
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| reply to wrwireless
We are using Radius Manager 3 until we are too big for that. It is fine for the number of customers we have, and probably good up to ~500 or so customers. |
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| How is Platypus? The nice thing about visp I guess is the manage everything
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www.windriverwireless.com |
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| reply to jcremin
said by jcremin:I went through the demo with VISP and there was no mention of any "licensing" fees or anything. Just the per-subscriber cost, which looks fairly similar to the powercode pricing. I've never really used either system, but I have heard complaints about powercode.
One advantage of VISP.net is that it is a hosted system, so you don't have to manage your own server. That means when they release an update, you automatically get it.
Either way, I ultimately decided to start building my own CRM. Will it be as pretty? No, but I also don't need or want to use it as a billing system. I am a firm believer that your billing system should be a billing system.
At 250 customers, I'd be paying around $3500 a year. I can get quite a bit of development done for $3500, and then if I invest even just $1000 a year after that, I can continue to update it. And if in a couple years I am at 500 customers, I won't be paying $7,000 every year. Once I have all the functionality built, there is virtually zero ongoing expense other than any extra functionality I decided to add in the future, and my costs don't increase as I add customers.
My thoughts are that anything that will pay for itself in 3 to 5 years is a good long-term investment. If I can build a tower for significantly less than I will pay in rent in the first 3 to 5 years, I will take out the loan to build it, because after it has "paid for itself" I own it and my ongoing expense is very low. I'm taking the same approach with my CRM. Over the course of 3 to 5 years, I would have spent between 10 and 17 grand to VISP.net or powercode, and that isn't including the costs for additional customers that I fully expect to have added, which could put the total well over 20 grand.
Now, I've only just begun development, so maybe in a few months I'll be regretting my decision, but if this system turns out really well, I might be interested in licensing it out for a reasonable fee. I am building it from the ground up as a WISP CRM, but I'm also building it for the specifics of how I run my network, which may or may not work for other people. All I know is that as a WISP, anything we can do to keep our costs down is good for us. If I can recoup some expenses and help other WISP's save money and compete better with the big ISP's, I'm all for it.
I'll let everyone know how it turns out.
Good for you man, that's what I did/am still doing. |
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jcremin
join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI
kudos:2 | said by jim_p_price7:Good for you man, that's what I did/am still doing. How is it working out for you so far? Any regrets or things you would do differently?
I REALLY had to think long and hard about whether or not to jump in and build my own, since there are so many advantages to being able to simply use an existing hosted system. In the end, I just couldn't justify the cost versus building my own, and I really hope it turns out to be everything I am picturing. |
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1 edit | reply to wrwireless
We've been using RadiusManager3 and it's not bad. Their service and support are great. It's got a low price tag too.
But, We are moving to Platypus and FreeRadius.
You can get Platypus for free if you are under 100 customers. Or 99.00 a month for up to 250.
They will log into your server and install it for you and they have a great support team. You do have to use IPPay with the free version but it's cheaper than authorize.net. We saved 250.00 a month by moving to IPPay.
The only downside for me is running linux. Don't know dick about it so it makes setting up freeradius a MF. But it was a 30 minute job for one of our partners to do with the install script platypus provides to install freeradius and configs for platypus.
((their do support a few different radius platforms))
I have looked at wispmon and it's really nice. It's has a lot of the features I've been looking for but the price seems a bit high. |
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NWOhio
join:2011-10-25
Toledo, OH | do you have a link for Platypus? |
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| reply to wrwireless
»www.ispbilling.com/ |
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| reply to wrwireless
Third-party Integration
Platypus's flexible provisioning model allows it to integrate with almost any external system that provides an API via one of five methods within the client. These methods include:
HTTP
ODBC
Email
Platypusd - Remote Command Line Execution on Unix or Windows
Local Scripting (VBScript/JavaScript)
Scripts for many popular systems have already been written by the Platypus team, including Control Panels, Mail Servers, FTP Servers, Radius Servers and more. A full list is found below.
Some integrations will require the installation of Platypusd. Platypusd allows the Platypus client to securely communicate with remote Unix and Windows systems in order to provision accounts and is used in conjunction with command line interfaces and/or scripts.
Platypus works well with others by offering integration with the following:
Wireless
Motorola Canopy Prizm EMS
Mikrotik
Control Panels
cPanel
Ensim
Hostopia
H-Sphere
IIS
Plesk
FTP Servers:
Serv-U
WS_FTP Server
Mail Servers/Hosted Email:
ArGoSoft Mail Server Pro
CommuniGate
Everyone.Net
Google Apps
Hostopia Email
Imail
MagicMail
Mail Enable
MailMax
MDaemon
Merak
Mercur
Microsoft Exchange
NTMail
OpenSRS Email Service
Rockliffe MailSite
SLmail
USA.NET
VOPMail/ModusMail
Radius Servers:
3com Total Control
Advanced Radius
CiscoSecure
Clearbox
FreeRadius
Lucent Navis
Microsoft IAS
Radiator
RadiusNT
Steel-Belted
TCCRadius
Vircom
Domain Names:
Tucows/OpenSRS
Web Accelerators:
Artera Turbo Web Acceleration
Propel Web Acceleration |
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NWOhio
join:2011-10-25
Toledo, OH | reply to treichhart
thanks! |
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