My experience, we find the majority of our customers do take a managed router, we charge $8/mo. If they have that, we try to be helpful as we can with home network issues including occasionally needing to send a tech out to figure out what's going on. It is not a "covers anything repair plan" though, physical damage is still a paid repair. For outbuildings, if the customer will install a conduit to the building we will have tech pull a cat5 and install a mesh AP out there for $5 additional monthly cost. If it's longer than ~300ft we tell them its outside of our scope and we'd need to install a second fiber service, or they can do whatever else they want on their own (fiber run, wireless link etc) but it's not supported by us then.
On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 8:18 PM Dev <d...@logicalwebhost.com> wrote: > I think it’s smaller number than we think that want to know about the > bits, SNR, etc. Those are just the kinds of people we really like. > > The other majority, probably vast majority, just want to see magic happen > and not know why, so they can get back to wasting their valuable time as a > nation of observers, not participants. You can have to do stuff to > participate, easier to just observe. Those people don’t own businesses like > ours, or want to, or want to know how they work really. > > </rant> > > On Jan 26, 2025, at 10:23 AM, Ken Hohhof <khoh...@kwom.com> wrote: > > Carterfone decision was 1968, up to that point you leased your phones from > the phone company which maintained the inside wiring. If you added another > phone, your bill went up, and they would run automated line tests to detect > phones you weren’t paying for. After Carterfone, telcos installed demarcs > on the outside of houses and were responsible for the network up to the > demarc, unless you paid extra for home wiring maintenance. Nobody rents or > even buys their landline phones from the phone company anymore. > > So is anyone surprised that home Internet is kind of going the opposite > direction? > > Actually, we find our customers divide into two camps. The majority think > leasing things like routers is a ripoff by greedy ISPs, and they want to > own and manage their own networking equipment (whether they actually know > how to do that or not). Basically they figure that after a couple years it > would be cheaper to own it. > > But another group views it all as “Internet”, and they’re paying us for > Internet, right? The big ISPs have mostly accepted this and actually use > it as a marketing tool under the name “whole home WiFi”. But in reality, > they just sell or lease you additional WiFi mesh nodes which you can plug > in where you want and monitor with an app if you want. Still pretty much > DIY. > > Where that kind of breaks down is that many people in our rural area have > outbuildings which may be barns, or shop buildings, or man caves and party > barns where they watch football games. And of course all of the above need > security cameras. > > So there are DIY solutions to these, and a limited number we are willing > to install. We don’t do trenching, and we won’t do the WiFi mesh node in > the window trick, even though it might work OK if they do it themselves. > But some customers seem frustrated because they think it’s all Internet and > if they’re paying us for Internet we have to get it to every corner of > every building. > > I mean, I guess the landline phone company will install phone jacks in > additional rooms or even bury wires to other buildings, but you’re going to > pay labor and materials plus pay for maintenance. Maybe it’s all in > “managing customer expectations” and I’m not good enough at that. Somehow > when it comes to Internet, some people seem to think anything Internet > related is covered by their monthly bill. I have seen some WISPs offer a > monthly maintenance plan, but you’d think that would cover repairs, not > unlimited home networking additions and device support. I feel like we’re > expected to be the free version of Geek Squad. > > It just seems strange to me that on one hand people celebrate their > freedom to not pay the phone company for their home wiring and phones, but > on the other hand they expect almost concierge level service from their > ISP. But I’m also surprised at people who have Amazon or Walmart deliver > their groceries and put them in the garage or even the fridge. I wonder > how that goes with people who have dogs. > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >
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