competition - wisp vs cable vs dsl

We're going thru an interesting business case in our local area
as a high tech suburb just west of Chicago - Lisle, Illinois -
We don't have our own CO, but draw dialtone from a neighboring CO.

As it turns out - the CO is too far for most to install xDSL service -
Therefore - no DSL service -

Next, the AT&T cable franchise never upgraded their equipment
to support Internet service.
Therefore - no cable modem service -

A couple of guys last fall started the ball rolling on putting up a
serious
wireless ISP - WISP - using Motorola Canopy equipment.
They finally got it up on the local water towers,
and started accepting customers in the spring.....
http://www.wowaccess.com

Now comes the interesting part -
They were up and running at the same time as AT&T
sold their cable franchise to Comcast.
Now Comcast has gone thru the area
and upgraded their cable infrastructure to support internet service.
They now can offer customers cable modems...

Also - it appears that Ameritech/SBC
has started using their remote terminal cabinets
to install chassis and cards to support DSL in our area -
maybe as a final result of SBC being granted Long Distance permission.
no confirmed DSL users as yet -

So - a couple of interesting business case questions come to mind -
1) Did the cable and telco companies respond to the wireless competitor
?
or was it just really bad luck to have BOTH coming online
just as the WISP was getting up and running ?

2) The startup cost for the WISP customer is about $500 for the wireless
module.
The WISP can't absorb this cost, else they will go out of
business....
How can they compete with the telco & cable offerings - with no such
costs ?

3) How do you think this will play out ?

Phil -

In alt.internet.wireless Phil Schuman <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> They finally got it up on the local water towers,
> and started accepting customers in the spring.....
> http://www.wowaccess.com

> So - a couple of interesting business case questions come to mind -
> 1) Did the cable and telco companies respond to the wireless competitor

I doubt it. They probably saw a vacuum, not served by DSL or cable, and
gave no thought to water towers.

> 2) The startup cost for the WISP customer is about $500 for the wireless
> module.
> The WISP can't absorb this cost, else they will go out of
> business....

A- That's too high. What's in that box, and why didn't they get a
quantity discount?
B- cable/DSL sometimes charges $100-200, sometimes it's free.
I pay $5 per month for a $90 cable modem.
C- MCI charged about $500. DirecWay charges $500

> How can they compete with the telco & cable offerings - with no such
> costs ?

That might be tough. Can they drop the sophistication of the box for
residential, and keep it high for business. (Otherwise the pricing of
business verses residential looks bad anyway.)

> 3) How do you think this will play out ?

The company might die before people figure out that a good local company
beats the hell out of conglomerate cable modem. ;-(


--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5

Phil Schuman <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> Also - it appears that Ameritech/SBC
> has started using their remote terminal cabinets
> to install chassis and cards to support DSL in our area -
> maybe as a final result of SBC being granted Long Distance permission.

Not a chance this is anywhere even anywhere remotely close to the truth.

> So - a couple of interesting business case questions come to mind -
> 1) Did the cable and telco companies respond to the wireless competitor
> ?
> or was it just really bad luck to have BOTH coming online
> just as the WISP was getting up and running ?

They are all out to eat each other alive, except perhaps the wireless guys.

> 2) The startup cost for the WISP customer is about $500 for the wireless
> module.
> The WISP can't absorb this cost, else they will go out of
> business....
> How can they compete with the telco & cable offerings - with no such
> costs ?

They can not. There is no way, at least not on price alone. Luckily
for them sbc is absolute dog shit amongst phone companies, and comcast
is not far behind them in the world of catv, so if the wireless people
can provide decent service they might have some itsy bitsy chance of
surviving and prospering. Maybe. But probably not.

> 3) How do you think this will play out ?

sbc will cream everyone else on price then the very day their competition
has been destroyed they will jack the prices up like there is no tomorrow.

Billy Y..

On Mon, 7 Jul 2003 23:59:32 +0000 (UTC), (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>and comcast
>is not far behind them in the world of catv,

You got that right. The Comlast cable recently went out at 4PM
in my neck of the woods. I called Comlast and was told
that it was a "scheduled outage" for the entire town in order to
upgrade the area. A what ? A 4pm during prime time for most folks
to be using their TV's ? Service was down from 4PM to 1AM.

I suggested to the phone-techno-dud that they might want to do
service that takes out an entire town in the middle of the night,
or even the middle of the day. He responded "well, we have some
customers who watch during the late night hours after 2AM. (Gee,
I wonder what the ratio is). The kicker was that they could not
tell me when the outage would end i.e. there was no scheduled
end for the outage. (There was also no advance notice). Wouldn't
you think that a project that takes an entire town out of service
for a day would have a scheduled/expected completion time ? That
isn't the sort of thing you do off the cuff normally. Idiots.

Oh well, just another da for a cable company. When you're a local
monopoly, you don't have to be good, you just have to be.

Bob

Expect the start-up costs for the WISP to drop to around $300 soon as the
subscriber hardware costs drop with volume increases to Motorola.


"Phil Schuman" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:becs4d$3ti$(E-Mail Removed)...
> We're going thru an interesting business case in our local area
> as a high tech suburb just west of Chicago - Lisle, Illinois -
> We don't have our own CO, but draw dialtone from a neighboring CO.
>
> As it turns out - the CO is too far for most to install xDSL service -
> Therefore - no DSL service -
>
> Next, the AT&T cable franchise never upgraded their equipment
> to support Internet service.
> Therefore - no cable modem service -
>
> A couple of guys last fall started the ball rolling on putting up a
> serious
> wireless ISP - WISP - using Motorola Canopy equipment.
> They finally got it up on the local water towers,
> and started accepting customers in the spring.....
> http://www.wowaccess.com
>
> Now comes the interesting part -
> They were up and running at the same time as AT&T
> sold their cable franchise to Comcast.
> Now Comcast has gone thru the area
> and upgraded their cable infrastructure to support internet service.
> They now can offer customers cable modems...
>
> Also - it appears that Ameritech/SBC
> has started using their remote terminal cabinets
> to install chassis and cards to support DSL in our area -
> maybe as a final result of SBC being granted Long Distance permission.
> no confirmed DSL users as yet -
>
> So - a couple of interesting business case questions come to mind -
> 1) Did the cable and telco companies respond to the wireless competitor
> ?
> or was it just really bad luck to have BOTH coming online
> just as the WISP was getting up and running ?
>
> 2) The startup cost for the WISP customer is about $500 for the wireless
> module.
> The WISP can't absorb this cost, else they will go out of
> business....
> How can they compete with the telco & cable offerings - with no such
> costs ?
>
> 3) How do you think this will play out ?
>
> Phil -
>
>
>