Company Forums » Companies beginning with D » Dedicated Network Solutions LLC > Why a 12 months contract?

Why a 12 months contract?

To lock in a price and better forecast revenue??

but britsys seems to be a great ISP everyone is happy with. They don't need to lock in customers like crappy ISPs do. If they offered month to month, wouldn't more people sign up instead of going for cable?

reply to gozu
I'm guessing that it isn't a britsys decision but one from the worldcomm, etc.

I've gotten month to month service before (a really slow speed and rather expensive due to the plan being the only month to month plan) so it can be done.

Probably so you can offer x price and know that you will get at least 12 times that much as revenue.

Also prevents people from jumping from plan to plan which could end up being a big problem. If SBC suddenly offers a better plan then all of Worldcomm people change to SBC (which means a lot of lost revenue). Then Woldcomm offers a better plan which means people jumping back.

reply to gozu
I guess that MCI charges a stiff line setup fee and they could offer a straight month to month, but would have to charge something like a $300 setup fee instead of the current $49-$69 (site currently shows $69 on CB plan, but its still labeled as Nov/Dec special).

Comcast just bets that you won't go away and most cable companies have an actual installation fee (though waived most of the time). Also Comcast is a multi-billion dollar company, but Britsys is much smaller and can't eat the fees a bunch of one monthers would generate.

reply to gozu
Unfortunatly MCI require a 12 month commitment for all DSL services which is why we ask for a contract to be completed.

We would like to offer month to month with them but the cancellation fees are ~$200 to $300, hence the contract for 12 months service which protects us from having to pay that fee.

Other providers that claim to be month to month will still charge you a $200 to $300 cancellation fee if you cancel before 12 months.

On a good note, we still have 97%+ of our MCI customers that signed up in mid 2002 so they must like the service, most of the customer that left moved and could not get the service in their new location.

Do you have a cell phone?
Most cell phone providers are 12 to 24 month contracts with hefty cancellation fees for leaving early.
DSL providers are similar as far as the contract lengths and termination fees.

Hope that helps

Britsys.

reply to gozu
Yes, I do have a cellphone but it's been in the closet for the past 2 years. Funny you should mention it because the contracts you were talking about are the reason I don't use it anymore. I used to buy prepaid cards back when I lived in europe but in the U.S, the prices for those are too high And you have to pay when other people call you.

Thanks for your clarification. Clearly, as a reseller, you don't really have control over plans and pricing. So it's something to do with MCI/COVAD/etc.