View Full Version : Service Offerings and bandwidth.
palmczak
01-10-2007, 12:53 PM
I am asking for input regarding the different service levels other WISPs offer.
Currently I sell a 1.0/1.0Mbps connection Customers actually about 1.1-1.2 most of the time. This plan costs $44.95/month.
Currently I have a few POPs that are t-1 fed and can't really sell a faster connection. We are looking into using a bonded t-1 solution any one have much experience with these.
Bandwidth here is still expensive though not as bad as some others places. t-1's are about $575.00 month + tax. Anything bigger usually means huge install fees. One location we want to use a fract DS-3 but install was going to cost $40K and a 3yr contract.
Thanks,
joe
nickwhite
01-10-2007, 03:44 PM
We currently just offer a 1.5Mbps connection to all for $39.95 - both up and down. We include free webspace, 10 emails, etc. We have a few custom installs that we allow 2-3 Mbps. We plan to sell three packages in the near future upon install of a DS3: 768Kbps, 1.5Mbps, 3Mbps. We'll be dropping the price by $10 upon installation of the DS3 as well.
We were getting a single T1 through Verizon (local Telco) for around $1200 a month. We switched to two bonded T1s from AT&T for less than that. Class C included.
We have a bonded DSL link using a box from Adtran. Can handle up to 8 lines at 2mb each. It has worked well for the past 6 months for us. We were going to use a licensed wireless link, even bought the radios, until they came up with this proposal. Install was under a grand and we connect via a 100mb ethernet port.
As far as bandwidth to customers, we offer 1500 down and 256k up for $42 per month. Some day I'll get around to defining more plans and charging accordingly.
1.5/256 $40/mo
1.5/512 $50/mo with as many extra features as we can find (more email addresses, hosting for one domain included, etc.)
3.0/1.0 $80/mo
These are residential rates, business rates are about double.
palmczak
01-10-2007, 06:53 PM
We have a bonded DSL link using a box from Adtran. Can handle up to 8 lines at 2mb each. It has worked well for the past 6 months for us. We were going to use a licensed wireless link, even bought the radios, until they came up with this proposal. Install was under a grand and we connect via a 100mb ethernet port.
As far as bandwidth to customers, we offer 1500 down and 256k up for $42 per month. Some day I'll get around to defining more plans and charging accordingly.
What do your customers see for ping times? We have a few DSL expiriments but the latency is to high. We see 75ms+ to Yahoo and Google and higher to other sites. (this is plugged into the DSL modem) Add the wireless links and backhauls and soon it will be 100ms plus. VOIP and games will be unusable. t-1's give us ~30ms to the same sites.
palmczak
01-10-2007, 06:56 PM
We currently just offer a 1.5Mbps connection to all. We have a few custom installs that we allow 2-3 Mbps. We plan to sell three packages in the near future upon install of a DS3: 768Kbps, 1.5Mbps, 3Mbps.
We were getting a single T1 through Verizon (local Telco) for around $1200 a month. We switched to two bonded T1s from AT&T for less than that. Class C included.
How many subs do you run on the 3.0 connection? I must have heavy users... 3.0Mbps will only allow 15-20 users.
What do your customers see for ping times? We have a few DSL expiriments but the latency is to high. We see 75ms+ to Yahoo and Google and higher to other sites. (this is plugged into the DSL modem) Add the wireless links and backhauls and soon it will be 100ms plus. VOIP and games will be unusable. t-1's give us ~30ms to the same sites.
My home is 4 hops or 10 miles, all wireless, from the office. Pinging yahoo.com and google.com both show ping times in the 75-83, avg 77 ms range per my tests just now at 8pm local time. These are DSL lines - 2 wire - but may be closer to T1 in performance. I've got a separate 3mb Qwest straight DSL line that I route some customers though, probably 75 at this time with no complaints.
Stratolinks
01-10-2007, 08:42 PM
Just tried this at my house which is 9 hops out at the current end of our wireless network.
--- google.ca ping statistics ---
50 packets transmitted, 50 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 43.389/56.245/102.864/14.159 ms
This is 1 2.4GHx 2x cloaked hop then the rest are 5.8GHz links (most are 2x cloaked) all the way to the ISP where it then hits the Cisco router then out via a Bell Canada fibre.
kbldawg
01-10-2007, 10:02 PM
symetrical speeds
512k - $29
1mb - $39
2mb - $49
3mb - $59
add $20/month for static ip.
customers may either purchase or rent their cpe. add $10/month for rent
If it's going to be a deal breaker and they can't purchase or rent the CPE, then we will usually offer a 2yr lease option so they can get internet with $0 down. At the end of the lease, we own the gear. We don't advertise this option.
60% go with 512k and rent
30% go with 1mb
10% go with the fast lane, and those customers usually wanna buy their gear.
nickwhite
01-10-2007, 11:13 PM
How many subs do you run on the 3.0 connection? I must have heavy users... 3.0Mbps will only allow 15-20 users.
We have almost 300 surprisingly. :eek: We only have a few heavy users. A few gamers, and some businesses doing VPN, HAM/VoIP stuff, etc. The gamers know not to use BitTorrent during the middle of the day. Quite honestly, we only top out the link maybe once or twice a day, and only for 5 minutes tops... usually when the gamers are all downloading at night. Generally it sits solid around 1.5-2Mbps saturation.
We really have managed our bandwidth well. We take advantage of the CBQ 'fb 1500k' feature a lot. =)
Also, my ping times from my house (not part of this network... 65 miles away using AT&T DSL) to our customers is 35~50ms.
-Nick
palmczak
01-11-2007, 10:29 AM
The latency from the additional wireless hops is minimal. We have 2 backhauls that are > 40 Miles. One is 3 hops and the other is 4 hops. They were suposed to be upgraded this past summer but we ran out of good weather. Each of these only add about 6ms end to end. It is the DSL that is very latent. I may order one from another provider just for comaprison.
Thanks for all the feedback.
Joe
For the speeds mentioned here (1, 1.5 M etc), do you offer your users unlimited traffic, and if so, how do you limit them or shape traffic for them in order to get fair link distribution?
We have some smaller "unlimited/flat" packages and some users are really heavy downloaders.. some of them download something >95% of the time, and most of others are hungry too...
kbldawg
01-11-2007, 12:40 PM
For the speeds mentioned here (1, 1.5 M etc), do you offer your users unlimited traffic, and if so, how do you limit them or shape traffic for them in order to get fair link distribution?
We have some smaller "unlimited/flat" packages and some users are really heavy downloaders.. some of them download something >95% of the time, and most of others are hungry too...
All our customers are unlimited. Unless, they are obviously abusing the network, and that is left up to our interpretation, we let them do what they want to do.
We bandwidth limit at the CPE on all new installs. When we first started, bandwidth limiting was done at the APs, so we have a mix.
We haven't had any complaints or issues with our current setup, but I do plan to start filtering out the p2p traffic and send it all through a qshape fb rule. Just haven't had the time to get that implemented.
With over 200 wireless subscribers last months bandwidth report looks like this...
Max / Average / Current
In:8948.3 /2450.3 /3753.7 kb/s
Out:4628.7 /1341.4 /2061.6 kb/s
this is on a 30mb/s OC3.
palmczak
01-12-2007, 10:50 AM
For the speeds mentioned here (1, 1.5 M etc), do you offer your users unlimited traffic, and if so, how do you limit them or shape traffic for them in order to get fair link distribution?
We have some smaller "unlimited/flat" packages and some users are really heavy downloaders.. some of them download something >95% of the time, and most of others are hungry too...
We do offer unlimited usage. We also are implimenting more IP Accounting and are keeping a closer watch on how much each sub is using. We are concerned with P2P but as long as network is not impacted to the point where other customers are affected we allow it. With a wireless network P2P can open to many connections, (in some cases thousands per user) we have seen this as a bigger problem than the amount of bandwidth.
We have been using MT for routing/shaping behind the Star AP's We have implemented MT's PCQ as a fairness strategy. It seems to do a good job of allowing everyone a fair share of the available bandwidth during the busy times and allowing what ever is available during the slow times. If a customer becomes a problem then we still have the option of using the CBQ in the CPE to augment the MT.
With over 200 wireless subscribers last months bandwidth report looks like this...
Max / Average / Current
In:8948.3 /2450.3 /3753.7 kb/s
Out:4628.7 /1341.4 /2061.6 kb/s
Seems you have good, non-abusive customers. In our network, 1 Mbps unlimited plan would take at least 150 Kbps average per user, so even 45 Mbps pipe wouldn't be wide enough :)
We have been using MT for routing/shaping behind the Star AP's We have implemented MT's PCQ as a fairness strategy. It seems to do a good job of allowing everyone a fair share of the available bandwidth during the busy times and allowing what ever is available during the slow times. If a customer becomes a problem then we still have the option of using the CBQ in the CPE to augment the MT.
We use similar solution but with htb trees and inner pcq, shapping at the main gateway for internet, and on the accesspoints or near them for local based traffic. It does the job, but I am not happy with it regarding internet traffic shaping. I have searched for some solutions which can change priority level of users according to their usage and link all this with current customer plans, but haven't found solution good for us. There is some intereting opensource package at CZnet and there is mastershaper.org (but in beta).
There are some other methods not implemented in popular software, like imq (and its newer implementation), hfsc and others. Combining them in standalone linux box and linking with customer/traffic database would be good and effective idea but takes much time and testing.
Btw, in our country (se Europe) traffic costs around $500/Mbps. Leased lines or optics is much expensive and it is hard to do anything with them (year ago E1 was priced around 1300$). It is popular solution for some providers to estabilish wireless links with nearby countries and get traffic there at much lower rates.
cephlon
01-30-2007, 01:05 AM
Out here in the ocean a T1 line is $800. I tried to get a T3 but the lowest I could fine was $7000 with a 5 year contract. We offer
1M/512 for $50
and 1.5/768 for $75
I'll be rolling out an economy plan soon, probably 512 for $30.
We have 2 t1's and we are maxing out a lot lately with about 175 users. Its definitly time to upgrade.
I have a follow up question. Time Warner is offering 5M fiber lines for $1400 a month and 10M for $2000. This is very tempting but they will also be rolling out service in my area of operation. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with getting my backbone from my direct competitor. Has anyone else had experience with this?
oscarBravo
01-30-2007, 06:13 AM
We briefly used a direct competitor (i.e. another WISP) as a backhaul provider in the early days. It was a disaster - not because they deliberately caused us any problems, but because they were completely crap (and still are).
Our current provider is also in the retail broadband market, but in generally different geographic areas; in fact our account manager is also a customer of ours at home. It's worked out extremely well, and we'll continue to do business with them for the foreseeable future.
go.fast
01-30-2007, 08:38 AM
I'm not sure how comfortable I am with getting my backbone from my direct competitor. Has anyone else had experience with this?
I think it is inevitable that we buy from our competitors at some point.
If your in Qwest territory you buy from Qwest, even if ATT is selling the connection, it still is Qwest wires and system they are riding over.
And then if your selling Qwest DSL and buying Qwest DS3, they send your customers flyers and offers every month trying to get them to switch.
Crazy, but it's the norm.
Best thing to get is a solid contract with down time penalties and a clause that lowers your price as they lower their price.
Today they want 1,400 next year they are offering it for 950.00,
I had this clause in one of my contracts and they lowered my price when I brought it to their attention.
Same as the qwest story, BellSouth uses lots of underhanded sneaky tactics to steal all our DSL customers, such as calling up our customers with a special deal whenever we put a repair ticket in for their DSL line. And changing their DSL service over to bellsouth.net without the customer's consent and then offering them some super deal not to switch back. Unfortunately it usually works, BS gets the customer after offering them some $10/mo DSL for 6 months thing to accept their being slammed.
We get our telecommunications services (the circuits themselves) from BS because we have no choice and also because BS actually does a good job in that department.
But, our backbone provider is Savvis. Probably going to add InterNAP soon and start running BGP.
go.fast
01-30-2007, 04:26 PM
The underhandedness was he reason we dumped dsl a few months after turning it on.
We only do wireless (and 56k) and we're happier.
I never could understand why we'd ever push DSL. When I bought out this company 3 years ago, there were around 20 dsl customers paying us $10 more per month than Qwest. My predecessors embraced Qwest and thought they could do better by cooperation. I detest the stinkin' telcos, learned that a long time ago. I didn't advertise or even offer it to prospective customers. We were losing hundreds per month on the product but there were legal obstacles to quitting the program. I raised rates another $10 and didn't chase off any customers. It was part of an ATM network and Qwest turned it off one day out of the blue. They did the same thing to my modem lines at least 4 times so I terminated all service with them. Saved me alot of money and my sanity.
palmczak
01-31-2007, 09:18 AM
For all the other poeple is Qwest country, who do you buy your circuits/bandwidth from? I have 2 t-1's from ACC business right now, the contract is expiring and I need to upgrade.
We also don't push DSL. We have a few out there but it is a bad game.
Thanks,
Joe
go.fast
01-31-2007, 09:32 AM
Fortunatly for me, there is fiber running past our town that williams and bonneville put in years ago.
It eventualky got extended into our town and I buy access from a provider across that fiber.
So no Qwest for me.
DSL was a nightmare for us, especially when a dsl customer would hit the RESET button on the very top of the DSL modem and it would reset to DEFAULT and have to call QWEST to get reconfigured and then be told it was their ISP's fault and they need to switch to Qwest....
Just depends on who is located in your berg. Two companies that I know of that are flexible are Corbannetworks and 360networks. They commonly do business around Qwestland. You can see if you can colo some equipment and/or get an antenna on their roof. Qwest actually gave me some pretty decent quotes the last time we talked, 8-9 months ago. That's assuming they'd run fiber but no way, Jose!
Beebe
01-31-2007, 08:04 PM
You got me all excited about corban networks, they appear to have a tower in my area, but the phone numbers on their web site are not working :(
Anyone know if they are still alive?
Thanks,
Roger
palmczak
01-31-2007, 11:00 PM
I also would like to find out about Corban. From a map they have a POP about 30-40 miles.
Any one know how to get in touch with them?
The guy I talk to is out of Seattle. Japanese name Art Hashakawa or something close, I'll look it up when I get in the office tomorrow. Corban is pretty much the old WTCI. 360 is the old Touch America system. We went with TA years ago and they furnished wireless ds3 radios. They were based out of Butte and their backbone was UUNET, one of the best.
I better see if Art pays commish for referrals!
palmczak
02-02-2007, 11:14 AM
FWIW,
I have confirmed that Corban is still in business. I cannot say how accurate the map on there website is. I have not found a way to contact them. They do run a wireless network and do have provide access via wireless.
i20access
02-02-2007, 08:36 PM
Corban Networks was recently bought by another company. A sales rep recently contacted me to get my business. I forget the name offhand but I am able to contact a sales rep there if needed.
rebel2234
02-03-2007, 08:03 AM
I think I have found a number that works. Check this out!
http://www.onlypunjab.com/investments/fullstory-insight-Corban+Networks+Inc+Acquires+Broadband+Demand-newsID-203.html
dialed the second number and got his answering machine. gonna try it monday.
palmczak
03-21-2007, 09:00 AM
I am waiting for a DS3 to be installed but it seems like there is a problem and it will take 60 -90 (probably more due to a fiber extention) more days. I don't have that kind of time since this has been in the works all winter. I think I can get a bonded t-1 solution up and running in the mean time and cut over once the DS3 is installed.
My question how many subs (I know this depends on a lot of factors but generally speaking) would you run on a 6.0 (4xt-1) MLPPP bonded circuit. We have very little experience with MLPPP and cannot get a straight answer regarding the amount of overhead MLPPP adds and what actuall performance will be.
Thanks in advance.
Joe
Beebe
03-21-2007, 09:55 AM
I'm just upgrading from a 3 meg per packet cef circuit to a 4.5 meg mlppp circuit. Judging by what I've seen so far probably you'll fit roughly 400-600 clients on a 6 meg mlppp circuit depending on how you do your bandwidth shaping.
Of course ymmv.
Thanks,
Roger
nickwhite
03-21-2007, 11:52 AM
We are running 250+ customers on a 3Mbps CEF link. We're in the process of getting this upgraded to a 6Mbps MLPPP circuit.
Depending on your amount of power users and bandwidth offerings, you could probably push was Beebe said(~500). We sell 1.5/1.5 service max right now.
We can't even think of running 100 customers on 3mbit. When our t1s would hit 2.4mbit, the latency would go out of control. We work to maintain a good quality low latency link for everyone, and prefer it not to degrade at all during peak hours. Unless it is just too expensive, then its up to the bandwidth packages sold.
With the evolution of the internet it is good to plan ahead. We got someone thats just about 70 watching IPTV sports. So things are moving along.
go.fast
03-21-2007, 01:27 PM
We peak at about 12 megs or so with 600+ broadband subs. We don't do any bandwidth limiting to speak of, with the exception of maybe throttling some uploads on occasion.
We also don't do kids, so this is all small office home users doing their normal web activities.
cephlon
03-21-2007, 02:26 PM
I have about 210 customers on 3Mb Mlpp (2xT1) connection. Its ok, but I wouldn't recommend it. I ordered a 5M fiber about 3 months ago and I can't wait (neither can my customers) to have that installed. We get a lot of peak time slowness. I wanted to avoid it, but we had so many sign ups after the new year and I couldn't get the new fiber in time.
With the advent of Youtube and almost every sight featuring streaming video (news, sports updates, etc) the nature of bandwidth control is changing. It seems a lot different then p2p. If you want to support video I wouldn't put more then 300 customers on 6M. If you just support web, email and maybe streaming audio, you could probably do 500 - 600.
cephlon
03-22-2007, 12:07 AM
We peak at about 12 megs or so with 600+ broadband subs. We don't do any bandwidth limiting to speak of, with the exception of maybe throttling some uploads on occasion.
We also don't do kids, so this is all small office home users doing their normal web activities.
How do you get away with not doing any bandwidth limiting? Do you turn away customers that you think may be bandwidth hogs? What speeds do you advertise?
go.fast
03-22-2007, 12:30 AM
Well the way I figure it, my network is like a big highway system. If I want to get as many cars on the road as I possibly can, I would simply make em all go twice as fast and I can get twice as many on.
So I don't slow people down, I make them go faster and get done downloading, get off my network.
I guess I avoid the cheap person that doesn't want to pay anything to get turned on and that leaves out a certain class of people.
Makes a nice balance.
I am sort of with you on that, except you know there are a small percentage of people who have the ability to download all day and all night no matter how much bandwidth they have. I know people who can successfully fill 12mbit 24/7.
HoeDing
03-22-2007, 03:16 PM
I am sort of with you on that, except you know there are a small percentage of people who have the ability to download all day and all night no matter how much bandwidth they have. I know people who can successfully fill 12mbit 24/7.
*Raises hand*
go.fast
03-22-2007, 03:26 PM
I am sort of with you on that, except you know there are a small percentage of people who have the ability to download all day and all night no matter how much bandwidth they have. I know people who can successfully fill 12mbit 24/7.
Right, thats when we put pan "B" into effect.
And throw out my rules and rate limit.
George
oscarBravo
03-22-2007, 05:09 PM
There will always be people who bring a doggie bag to an all-you-can-eat restaurant.
*glares at HoeDing*
(j/k :))
palmczak
03-22-2007, 09:51 PM
We are running a few tests right now where the users are not rate limited until certain transfer thresholds are met. There are times when allowing users full speed is the best thing. But those users that consume a whole connection cause quality issues for every one else.
We have a large number of P2P users while the limits are still being worked out it shows promise. Those that abuse the system quickly reach the thresholds and limits apply strictly. We have a growing problem with encrypted P2P that escape most layer 7 rules. This way the whole connection is limited when they attempt to download 20gig a day non-stop. Normal p2p shaping is in place but this seems to only catch the casual user. I have many hard core users that pull every trick in the book to escape traffic shaping. I have one customer that has purchased 2 connections one for general web use and 1 for p2p, since he knows the p2p connection will be limited severly when he hits the limits.
cephlon
03-22-2007, 10:51 PM
We have a large number of P2P users while the limits are still being worked out it shows promise. Those that abuse the system quickly reach the thresholds and limits apply strictly. We have a growing problem with encrypted P2P that escape most layer 7 rules. This way the whole connection is limited when they attempt to download 20gig a day non-stop. Normal p2p shaping is in place but this seems to only catch the casual user. I have many hard core users that pull every trick in the book to escape traffic shaping. I have one customer that has purchased 2 connections one for general web use and 1 for p2p, since he knows the p2p connection will be limited severly when he hits the limits.
Are you using a home-grown solution to monitor and limit the rate?
palmczak
03-23-2007, 02:32 AM
The solution is MT with a handfull of scripts.
we are like the StarOS for wireless and Mt as firewall router shaper. The new user manager sounds promising but I have no experience with it yet.
palmczak
04-05-2007, 12:21 AM
Anyone buy bandwidth from PNG (PowerNet Global)? They just quoted me a DS3 at a very attractive price. on a 2yr contract with 0 install.
any feedback is appreciated.
Joe
I've never heard of them until now, but I'm guessing it's cheap because it looks like they may be single-homed to the worst/cheapest backbone provider I know of: Cogent. Traceroute www.pngcom.com.
Is your bandwidth expensive or is your actual circuit expensive? Perhaps you could just get a DS-3 circuit to someplace and find your own bandwidth so you don't end up singlehomed to the worst backbone provider.
We have a 100mbit Metro Ethernet to a datacenter and then at the datacenter we colo routers and run cross-connects inside the same building over to whoever we want bandwidth from.
go.fast
04-05-2007, 10:26 AM
I've never heard of them until now, but I'm guessing it's cheap because it looks like they may be single-homed to the worst/cheapest backbone provider I know of: Cogent.
Cogent just quoted me 1,500 per month for a 100meg internet connection in Portland
Yep, the standard going rate for Cogent bandwidth is $15/meg. Which severely undercuts any other backbone provider I know of.
go.fast
04-05-2007, 11:03 AM
Not sure about Cogent being the only upstream, but at that price they can be an additional upstream.
palmczak
04-05-2007, 05:15 PM
Not sure but I believe that the Bandwidth is multi-homed to Qwest, and Level3. That question was emailed and the sales rep has yet to reply.
14Mb Frac ds3 is $2785 mo. 2yr contract.
(1yr contract $2939)
I am 90 miles from Denver. No one has a POP here, bandwidth is still real expensive.
Where in CO are you located? I'm in Casper.