Are ISP customers still capital assets?

In the closing years of the last century, the stockmarkets and their
analysts treated an ISP's customers as a sort of capital asset. The
price paid per customer was seen as important, when an ISP was taken
over.

In those days, changing ISP was awkward. There were few alternatives to
using an ISP domain name, email, and web-hosting.

Today all these can be easily and cheaply obtained without any
involvement from your ISP. And with the new rules on MACs, what seems to
be the last general barrier on changing ISP has been removed. There are
still penalties on changing a service too quickly, because up-front
costs are being spread over several months of the ISP subscription, but
a few days gao between one ISP and another wouldn't lose me anything,
and nothing my correspondents see would change.

So does a customer paying, for instance, a tenner a month, have the same
value in 2007 as in 1997? OK, so interest rates have an effect, but has
the balance shifted?



--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.

On the horizon, a carrier task force of the Salvation Navy was
turning into the wind, preparing to launch Zeppelins.

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:29:45 +0000 (GMT), (E-Mail Removed)
("David G. Bell") wrote:

>So does a customer paying, for instance, a tenner a month, have the same
>value in 2007 as in 1997? OK, so interest rates have an effect, but has
>the balance shifted?

A customer in 1997 was of limited value - Freeserve remember? Changing
ISP was as simple as changing the number the modem dialled.

Now if what you really mean is a customer on broadband in 2000/2001
when migrations didn't exist then a customer of 2007 is of less value
IMHO.
--
John Naismith

John Naismith wrote:
> Now if what you really mean is a customer on broadband in 2000/2001
> when migrations didn't exist then a customer of 2007 is of less value
> IMHO.

When did it become possible to Migrate providers? I moved from
BTopenworld to PlusNet in 2003, although this was via the CBUK route
rather than MAC

""David G. Bell"" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In the closing years of the last century, the stockmarkets and their
> analysts treated an ISP's customers as a sort of capital asset. The
> price paid per customer was seen as important, when an ISP was taken
> over.

Yes.
usually the value of the company is based on "annualised revenue"

""David G. Bell"" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In the closing years of the last century, the stockmarkets and their
> analysts treated an ISP's customers as a sort of capital asset. The
> price paid per customer was seen as important, when an ISP was taken
> over.
>
> In those days, changing ISP was awkward. There were few alternatives to
> using an ISP domain name, email, and web-hosting.
>
> Today all these can be easily and cheaply obtained without any
> involvement from your ISP. And with the new rules on MACs, what seems to
> be the last general barrier on changing ISP has been removed. There are
> still penalties on changing a service too quickly, because up-front
> costs are being spread over several months of the ISP subscription, but
> a few days gao between one ISP and another wouldn't lose me anything,
> and nothing my correspondents see would change.
>
> So does a customer paying, for instance, a tenner a month, have the same
> value in 2007 as in 1997? OK, so interest rates have an effect, but has
> the balance shifted?
>
>
Biscit /V21 customers do seem to have been treated as an asset (if perhaps
a rather difficult to sell one) and only started getting their MACs when BT
Wholesale stepped in, with Biscit's former V21 (eurisp supplied) customers
only just beginning to get macs after a deal to sell them to breathe was finally agreed :-
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/showthread.php?t=23541

And despite the new rules some customers of other ISPs also still seem to
be having problems escaping:-
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showflat...Number=2949312

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 10:47:30 +0000, Great Eastern <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>John Naismith wrote:
>> Now if what you really mean is a customer on broadband in 2000/2001
>> when migrations didn't exist then a customer of 2007 is of less value
>> IMHO.
>
>When did it become possible to Migrate providers? I moved from
>BTopenworld to PlusNet in 2003, although this was via the CBUK route
>rather than MAC

Late 2001/early 2002 IIRC. When I became the first person BT Openworld
couldn't hold to contract (full refund of 6 months subs + install) it
was September 2001 and the only way to move was a cease & provide
which took up to a month. I think my cease & provide took 3 weeks from
BT Openwrold to Nildram.
--
John Naismith

John Naismith wrote:
> Late 2001/early 2002 IIRC. When I became the first person BT Openworld
> couldn't hold to contract (full refund of 6 months subs + install) it
> was September 2001 and the only way to move was a cease & provide
> which took up to a month. I think my cease & provide took 3 weeks from
> BT Openwrold to Nildram.


Interesting, what had BTopenworld managed to screw up on that one?

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 15:33:35 +0100, Great Eastern <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Interesting, what had BTopenworld managed to screw up on that one?

Next-gen muxs seem to ring a bell - that and a stuffed linecard. It
was a four month PITA that would have been solved by a lift & shift
but there was more chance of a trip to the moon than BT Openworld
arranging this. Oh and of course the interminable lying from the call
centre staff - with the exception of two people the rest were, as far
as I could tell, compulsive liars.

After months of deteriorating service (8 hour+ outages just about
every day) I insisted on money back - all of it (300 quid or so). They
didn't argue. Personally I think they were too amazed that I'd managed
to find the CLO's address to complain that they just gave in :-D
--
John Naismith