Best of the ISP-Lists

Competing with the Cable Company

Members of the ISP-Wireless list discuss competing with cable broadband. There are many different valid solutions.

[September 11, 2000]

On the ISP-Wireless list in August, JL shared a concern:

"The cable company here is getting ready to offer cable modem access; their price will be half of what mine is. How badly do you think this will hurt my wireless service?"

BR explained that it won't kill him, but it will require a pricing change:

"I had to match their rate: I started at $64.95 but had to match their $39.95. But I include the equipment and charge $200.00 for the install — I break even in 2 1/2 months."

MKS advised a targeted marketing plan:

"It depends on how you sell your service, and who to. I went right after the residential market; I don't think anyone is going to come in here at half of my $35 a month. And if you are in the business market you should be OK too; they will be much more likely to maintain loyalty to another local business."

A number of respondents contended that competing with value-added services is better than competing on price:

[MJ suggested] "Just sell yours for a few dollars more, and add services cable doesn't have, like VoIP, etc. That will send the cheapies to the cable company, and you'll keep your customers."

[JT added] "Give them service, and you will do well. Have you ever looked at the TOS on a cable modem account? I always find it interesting when people worry about matching the cable providers' pricing. I used to have the $39.95 per month cable service, with $5 additional for a second IP, 128K throttled uploads, NO VPNs, and regular port-scanning for anything that resembled a server (some Linux users have had their feed cut just because they were running Linux). I now pay $99 per month for 192K SDSL, and they'll let me do just about anything I want."

—End